
Class. 
Book. 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



Am I Immortal? 



Copyright 1910 
By James K. Anderson 

Copyright. Canada. 1910 
By James K. Anderson 



ffl — g 

AM I IMMORTAL 

SOME FACTS FOR. 
BUSY MEN BY A 
BUSINESS MAN 



James Kennedy Anderson 



o". 



THE CARGILL COMPANY 

GR.AND RAPIDS AND CHICAGO 
MCMX 



>CU271116 



Am I Immortal ? 
INTRODUCTORY. 

This little book is written for busy men, many 
of whom are not aware of the possibility of im- 
mortal life for themselves in an actual body. 

It is such a book as the writer wishes he 
might have had to read long ago, setting forth 
briefly the simple facts of revelation as they 
are written in the book of nature, and The Book 
of books. 

In this busy world of today there are many 
who have given very little thought to a possible 
life beyond the life of this world, which is 
brought to an end by death. There are those 
who have thought so little about it as hardly to 
believe in a God at all. There are others whose 
time has been so occupied with other pursuits as 
to have very little to spare for graver subjects, 
but who really mean, sometime, to take up this 
matter of a possible immortality and look into 
it for themselves. There are others who think 
in a hazy way that all men are immortal and 
that, if so, they are willing to take their chances 
in the hands of a good God. To all such this lit- 
tle volume commends itself. 

The views here given are as old as the Chris- 
tian Religion, and are not offered as anything 
new. The subject is one of the most important 
which can occupy the human mind. Concerning 
a life beyond this, the Bible is the only author- 
ity which is universally quoted, and so a care- 
ful examination of what it teaches is due from 



Introductory 

every man. For that reason in this examination 
of the subject, the Bible has been left so largely 
to speak for itself. 

We read a great deal in the newspapers and 
magazines of what men do not believe, but it 
is only what we do believe that is of any ac- 
count, or that any busy man wants to listen to. 
It is confidently stated that the number of un- 
believers in this country who could give a reason 
for their unbelief which would bear a critical 
examination is so small as hardly to be worth 
considering. 

Unbelief is really a want of thought. As 
man rises in the scale of intelligence, his 
thoughts go upward to a Creator in seeking to 
understand His purpose in this world. 

This is a time for intelligent, thoughtful men 
to put aside the confused and confusing state- 
ments of the noisy few who do not believe in 
God, or creation, or the Bible; and to carefully 
ascertain for themselves what the Bible really 
reveals. 

The writer is not a trained theologian, but 
simply a student for himself of the English 
Bible, such as every intelligent man in this 
country ought to be. A short time thoughtfully 
spent will complete the perusal of this little vol- 
ume. May it serve the good purpose for which 
it is written. 

Forgive it where it fails in truth ; 
And in Thy wisdom make me wise. 

James Kennedy Anderson, 
Chicago, 1910 

6 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

Is THERE a God? • 9 

Creation 15 

Revelation — The Bible. 32 

What the Bible Teaches. . 40 

Sacbifice 44 

The Advent 48 

Matthew's Account 51 

Luke's Account 55 

The Son of Man 60 

The Son of God. . 65 

What Christ Said of Himself. ...... 72 

Christ's Teachings 76 

Christ's Miracles 80 

An Evening Prayer 83 

The Crucifixion 85 

The Resurrection of Christ 89 

Matthew's Account . . .91 

Mark's Account .93 

Luke's Account 96 

John's Account 101 

Paul's Account. . 108 

Sin 110 

Death the punishment for Sin. 112 

Eternal Life through Christ. 119 

Asleep in the Grave 123 

"He giveth His beloved Sleep." 131 

7 



Table of Contents 

"The Singing in God's Acre." 139 

Resurrection from the Grave 134 

The Law of the Kingdom 145 

The Gospel of the Resurrection 148 

The Klngdom of Heaven 156 

About Heaven. 162 

How to obtain Immortal Life 167 

A Neglected Book. 176 

Creeds 182 

The Lord's Supper a Passover Feast. . . . 187 

The Holy Communion 189 

A Communion Hymn 193 

Prophecy Now Being Fulfilled 194 

When will He come Again? 198 

The Resurrection Day 205 

The Judgment Day 211 

The End 220 

Appendix — Modern Superstitions 225 



Am I Immortal? 

IS THERE A GOD? 

Compared with this, all other questions sink 
into insignificance. We are in a world in which 
man is at the head of existing creatures, and in 
which everything seems to have been provided 
for his happiness and welfare. Whence did it 
all come? Whither are we going? Is there a 
God? These questions appeal to every thought- 
ful mind, and demand an answer. 

It seems hardly possible that any thoughtful 
mind could come to the conclusion that there has 
not been a Maker of the universe. A thought- 
less man, mindless of the evidence around him 
of a Creator and Governor of all things, may 
say, I do not believe in a God because I do not 
know who made Him. It is true that we cannot 
understand the nature of God either by extend- 
ing the personal, as we know it, into infinity ; or 
by compressing the infinite into the compass of 
our knowledge. There is a natural difficulty 
here due to the limitations of our faculties. 
A God who could be fully comprehended by 
man could not be the God of a limitless uni- 
verse. But to refuse to believe in a Creator of 
infinite power and wisdom, limits us as our only 



Am I Immortal ? 

Is There other alternative to believe that this world so 
a God. fjji £ design an( j adaptation, must either have 
formed itself out of nothing, or just happened 
so by chance. 

That the moon, for example, a sphere of dead 
matter without a trace of life, instead of having 
been swung into space by Almighty Power to 
give light upon the earth at night by reflecting 
the light of the sun, just happened there by 
chance; that the wonderful adaptation of the 
bird to the air, the fish to the water, and of all 
plants and animals to their surroundings is not 
a marvelous evidence of the wisdom and power 
of a Creator, but only happened so without in- 
telligent direction. 

Why should any one with all the evidence of 
creative wisdom in the world around us and in 
ourselves — a created being himself, who cannot 
understand the mystery of his own created 
nature — refuse to believe in the existence of a 
Creator because he cannot understand the mys- 
tery of the uncreated Godhead? As well might 
a Negro in interior Africa, who had dimly heard 
of a white man, far superior to his own race in 
wisdom and attainments, and coming to the va- 
cant tent of a white man, and finding a clock in 
it, reason thus with himself: This machine with 

10 



Am I Immortal ? 

its wheels fitting into each other in such an or- Is There 
derly way and with parts of it in constant mo- a God? 
tion; with material in front to keep out dust 
and dirt, but which can be seen through; may 
have been thought out and made by a white 
man, but I will not believe it because I do not 
know the origin of the white man. 

The native Negro in all the millenniums of 
his race on earth never invented a wheel of any 
kind, and never made or saw transparent glass; 
and yet a rational Negro seeing a clock for the 
first time would know that a man had made it, 
because it bore the evidence of an intelligent 
and creative mind; and that is the first step in 
the knowledge of a Creator as we study the in- 
telligent, orderly, creative work of Someone in 
the universe around us. 

It would be a very ignorant savage who 
could believe that the clock made itself, and 
what shall we say of a man who could believe 
that the universe made itself; that the worlds 
swinging in space in regular orbits, with satel- 
lites like our moon, with suns for their center, 
self luminous and giving light to the worlds 
bound by invisible power to each sun and revolv- 
ing around it, had all happened so by them- 
selves ; that the laws governing all creation did 

11 



Am I Immortal ? 

Is There not come from a Maker and Lawgiver, but just 
a God? happened so by chance ! 

To bring into existence and swing into their 
right orbits in space this earth and its moon, 
and the solar system of which it forms a part, 
reveals a power so stupendously great, that the 
creation of all worlds and all solar systems in the 
illimitable universe is only an extension of it. 

Well did King David, as he stood at night on 
the battlements of his palace at Jerusalem, and 
looked up at the stars in that clear Syrian sky, 
exclaim: "When I consider the heavens, the 
work of Thy fingers, the moon and the stars 
which Thou hast ordained, what is man, that 
Thou art mindful of him, or the son of man 
that Thou visitest him ,, (Psalms 8:3). 

Even in his own limited world of existence 
man knows that there cannot be laws without a 
lawgiver, and that the adaptation of parts to 
each other in any mechanism is the absolute evi- 
dence of an intelligent maker. Intelligent de- 
sign, purpose and will run through all creation. 
There is a unity of plan, as well as of purpose. 
And so the intelligent, thoughtful human mind 
in all ages has reached the conviction that there 
is an infinitely intelligent Maker of all things; 
and that is the first step in the knowledge of God 
as the Creator. 

12 



Am I Immortal ? 

The study of a single feather in a bird's wing, Is There 
is enough to convince a thoughtful mind of the a God? 
wonderful wisdom of its Maker. Yes, there 
must be a God. A meditative mind cannot get 
away from that fundamental conviction. The 
nebular theory of the universe, or the hypothesis 
of evolution equally require a great First Cause. 

As men studied the nature of their own being 
they recognized faculties and qualities of mind 
and heart which raised them far above all other 
living creatures in this world, and they realized 
that these faculties and qualities must exist in 
their Maker in a still higher degree. And as 
men thought of this world swinging unswerv- 
ingly in its orbit through space; of the wonder- 
ful adaptation of all plants and animals to their 
environment ; of the colors and odors of flowers ; 
of the colors, fragrance and palatable taste of 
fruits; of the beauty of precious stones, which 
could not have been brought about by "natural 
selection, environment and survival of the fit- 
test ;" of the beauty of the landscape and of the 
heavens; of the beauty of the human face; they 
understood that the Creator had been thinking 
of them in making this world, and that 

He only is the Maker of all things near and far ; 
He paints the wayside flower ; He lights the evening 
star; 

13 



Am I Immortal ? 

Is There The winds and waves obey Him ; by Him the birds 
a God? are fed; 

Much more to us His children, He gives our daily 

bread. 
All good gifts around us are sent from God above, 
Then thank the Lord, O thank the Lord, for all His 
love. 

And so when we consider the immensities of 
space and of time ; the creation of all worlds ; of 
all organized structures of being ; of all life ; we 
realize the necessity of a greater revelation than 
that of nature to man, if we are to know any- 
thing of our true relation to Almighty God, in- 
finite in everything, and so beyond our finite 
comprehension. 



14 



Am I Immortal ? 

CREATION. 

"In the beginning God created the heavens 
and the earth. And the earth was waste, and 
void, and darkness was upon the face of the 
deep, and the spirit of God moved upon the face 
of the waters" (Gen. 1:1).* In these words 
the record of the Bible begins. Here is a begin- 
ning immeasurable and limitless as to time, but 
comprehensible to the human mind. Recorded 
thousands of years before there was any science 
of geology, the order of creation is given in the 
book of Genesis just as man has found the fossil 
remains of successive orders of creatures imbed- 
ded in the rocks of the earth's crust. 

We do not know how this was revealed to the 
writer of Genesis. It may have been in visions 
of the night — "and the evening was and the 
morning was." We know that everything on 
earth has its exact cycle of time, and this was 
doubtless true of creation. We know by the evi- 
dence of the rocks that new species of animals 
appeared suddenly, without any intermediate 
forms leading to them from a lower species. It 
was not a more perfect creature succeeding a 
less perfect one, for each species was perfectly 
adapted to its limitations of life and of environ- 
ment. 
* The Revised version of the Bible is quoted from throughout. 
15 



Am I Immortal ? 

Creation As to periods of time, it is all the merest guess 
work. We know little or nothing of the time re- 
quired to form the various stratums of rock. 
The only measure we have to guess by is the 
time it takes silt to form into rock in this late 
period of the earth's existence, or the rate at 
which alluvial matter is deposited at the mouths 
of rivers. 

There may have been a hastening of creation 
toward man of inconceivable rapidity, as com- 
pared with what we know of conditions of exist- 
ence now. But whether the creation was car- 
ried out instantaneously, or in days, or ages, 
that was merely a matter of the good pleasure of 
the Creator. 

There is a nebular theory of the universe, and 
advocates of that point to the record in Gene- 
sis as confirmatory of it, because light is said to 
have existed before it came from the sun. 

There is an hypothesis of evolution set forth 
by Darwin and others, and since run wild; and 
if that were the order of creation, it is only 
what must have existed potentially and com- 
pletely in the original forms out of which it has 
all been unfolded, and this would not lessen the 
miracle of Creative power. 

How little is really known of the possibility 

of such evolution, and the omniscient way in 
16 



Am I Immortal ? 

which modern claims are made for it, is well Creation 
illustrated in the record of the last meeting 
of the British Association for Advancement of 
Science at Winnipeg (1909). Several eminent 
scientists have claimed quite seriously that the 
line of evolution to men came through a mol- 
lusk, while others equally learned claimed just 
as gravely that it had come through a worm. 

Concerning the mollusks, Professor Dawson 
has said: "I have for many years occupied a 
little of my leisure in collecting the numerous 
species of mollusca and other marine animals ex- 
isting in a sub-fossil state in the Post-pliocene 
clays of Canada, and comparing them with their 
modern successors. I do not know how long 
these animals have lived. Some of them cer- 
tainly go far back into the Tertiary; and recent 
computations would place even the Glacial age * 
at a distance from us of more than a thousand 
centuries. Yet after carefully studying about 
two hundred species, and, of some of these, many 
hundreds of specimens, I have arrived at the 
conclusion that they are absolutely unchanged," 
* * * * To what does this point? Evi- 
dently to the conclusion that all these species 
show no indication of derivation, or tendency to 
improve, but move back in parallel lines to some 

unknown creative origin.' 3 
17 



Am I Immortal ? 

Creation Men of science have traced the various forms 
of life from the lowest form of a single cell to 
the most complicated organism; from proto- 
plasm to man; but they find a missing link every- 
where between the various orders of creatures; 
(and not simply a missing link between the high- 
est order of monkeys and man, according to a 
popular misconception) and a well known man 
of science, with full knowledge of all that has 
been discovered, has said: "For aught science 
can say to the contrary, there may not have 
been a single link in the whole chain of biolog- 
ical progression which may not have required 
special Divine intervention to make it pre- 
cisely what it Is/ 9 * 

In the long ages during which this world 
has existed, the rocks show no fossil remains 
of transitional forms of life from one species 
to another, which must have abounded if the 
different species were evolved in that way. In- 
deed, if evolution were true, such transitional 
forms would abound among living creatures 
now; and their entire absence strongly negatives 
the whole theory; for such a law, if it ever 
existed, would be existing now. Besides, the 
existing laws of nature forbid it. The male of 
one species cannot fertilize the female of a 

* Prof. Richard A. Proctor. 

18 



Am I Immortal ? 

different species, and even where nearly related Creation 
animals, like the horse and ass, for example, 
mingle and produce a hybrid such as the mule, 
we find a law in nature that such hybrids 
cannot propagate, and so the line ends. In 
order to make their theory at all plausible in 
the face of these facts, evolutionists predicate 
such incredible periods of time necessary for 
such changes, as remove the possibility of evo- 
lution from the region of fact altogether. 

Sir Alfred R. Wallace, one of the greatest 
living scientists, has recently stated in one of 
his published lectures: "All the evidence at our 
command goes to prove that existing species re- 
main unchanged for long periods; certainly for 
many thousands of years. Some few no doubt 
have become extinct; but that has always been 
due to human agency. Since the last Glacial 
Epoch, a period of time for Europe of not more 
than eighty thousand years, and in many dis- 
tricts much less, the remains we find of plants 
and animals are all of species still living, 
though their distribution has become somewhat 
different from what it formerly was." 

Scientific evolution, however, really relates 
properly only to the development and varia- 
tion of living creatures "through environment, 

19 



Am I Immortal ? 

Creation natural selection and survival of the fittest/' 
There is nothing in the Darwinian theory, prop- 
erly understood, to negative the creation of the 
original species, and the contrary view meets 
with seemingly insurmountable objections. 

While God might have evolved the myriad 
forms of life from one original germ, they can- 
not be accounted for by a Godless evolution. 
How, for example, could an eye have formed 
itself? It is a complicated instrument, and one 
of no value whatever unless complete. From a 
sightless organism to one with eyes denotes a 
creative act. Consider the complicated mechan- 
ism of the human eye. 

The Miracle of Unbelief. Frank Ballard, M. A., 
F. jR. M . & etc. — Not only must the optic nerve be 
duly attached and proceed to the brain, but each eye 
must be provided with two delicate and exactly corre- 
lated lenses, two distinct kinds of intervening trans- 
parent media, six muscles (including a pulley through 
a socket to reverse the direction of the pull of two of 
them), ten distinct nerve layers co-ordinating with 
delicate fibrillae of the optic nerve to receive and 
appreciate and transfer multitudinous infinitesimal 
impressions from the ether, together with an automatic 
curtain for regulating the amount of light permitted to 
enter (which modern optical instruments have roughly 
copied), and the whole enclosed in a stout protecting 
membrane. All this apparatus, however, goes but a 
little way in explaining the mystery of sight. 

Is it conceivable that such an intricate in- 
strument could have formed itself? But won- 
20 



Am I Immortal ? 

derful as is the human eye in itself, how much Creation 
more wonderful is the mystery whereby the vis- 
ual image is brought into contact with the spirit 
of the man. Is not this a miracle of creation? 

And of what possible value could an ear be 
in process of evolution before being completed? 
In order to hear a sound, the vibration when 
started reaches the ear, is collected by the outer 
ear, where it sets in motion the hammer and the 
anvil and the stirrup, thence into the inner ear, 
where it vibrates through a liquid, affects the 
thousand or more organs of Corti, is sent around 
the semicircular canals into the cochlea, and on 
through the auditory nerve into the brain. Is 
it conceivable that the ear could have formed 
itself without a Designer and Creator? 

Then, too, the living out of the lifeless re- 
quires creative power. How can any one ac- 
count for the origin of life without the interven- 
tion of God? And how could the sexes have 
been evolved? "Male and female created He 
them" (Gen. 1:27). 

Evolution is believed in by many who de- 
sire to do away with a Creator and Redeemer 
and of moral responsibility to Him, as account- 
ing for the existence of living creatures, as if 
they had developed from nothingness of them- 

21 



Am I Immortal ? 

Creation selves; and without any investigation of the 
subject, because so much has been claimed for 
it in the name of science, it has had a wide ac- 
ceptance. The causes given for it are utterly 
inadequate to produce the results claimed for 
them, and, besides, there are well known and 
universal laws in nature which absolutely pro- 
hibit it. Darwin claimed that it may be so, and 
his followers enlarge upon the theory as if it 
were proven. 

If evolution were a law of nature it must be 
existing now. If the different species of ani- 
mals had been brought about by "natural selec- 
tion, environment and survival of the fittest/ ' 
then, as Darwin acknowledged, "there must 
have been innumerable, intermediate, transi- 
tional forms" between the different orders of 
creatures. The testimony of the rocks is over- 
whelmingly against such a theory, for there are 
no fossil remains of such transitional forms of 
life. 

If evolution were a law of nature, there 
would be innumerable transitional forms of life 
between the different species existing now, but 
none such are in existence today. In the ani- 
mal world today like produces like. There is no 
variation from this law, as to species. 

22 



Am I Immortal ? 

Darwin made much of the great variety of Creation 
pigeons brought about through breeding for 
hundreds of years from the original wild pig- 
eons, but these variations were brought about 
not by the pigeons themselves. The changes 
were wrought by the intelligence and control of 
man, and even then they were only pigeons at 
the end, after all. 

Darwin found a law in nature which he called 
Reversion to Type, and according to this law 
pigeons which had been changed into different 
varieties by many years of inter-breeding and 
domestication, when they escape from domesti- 
cation and begin breeding again in a wild state, 
speedily revert back to the original type of blue 
wild pigeons. 

If men by many years of inter-breeding and 
domestication could change pigeons into ani- 
mals with hair and teeth, that might be used as 
an argument in favor of evolution, but the law 
of nature forbids it. 

According to the law of nature that like pro- 
duces like invariably as to species, no such 
change could take place in the embryo; and it 
would be as impossible for it to take place after 
birth as it would be for a man by thinking of it 
to grow an extra finger on his hand, or to "add a 



Am I Immortal ? 

Creation cubit to his stature." If man, with his much 
higher intelligence, and his reason, cannot do 
anything as simple as that, what chance would 
there be for lower orders of creatures to make 
greater changes in their structure? 

To say nothing of the lower animals, con- 
sider the impossibility of such a change from 
a chimpanzee to a man. A monkey has a dif- 
ferent skull, a different brain, different teeth, 
a greater number of ribs, different bones in legs 
and feet; several muscles instead of one to con- 
trol the toes, and a hairy body like other ani- 
mals. It could not change in the embryo, and 
how would it be possible by "transmutation' ' for 
it to make these changes afterward? Prof. 
Huxley, an evolutionist, said concerning the dif- 
ferences between man and the highest order of 
monkeys: "Let me take this opportunity, then, 
of distinctly asserting on the contrary, that they 
are great and significant; that every bone of a 
gorilla bears marks by which it may be distin- 
guished from a similar bone in man; and that, 
in the present creation at least, no intermediate 
link bridges over the gap between Homo and 
Troglodytes" 

An imaginary statement having wide circu- 
lation has had much to do with extending a be- 

24 



Am I Immortal f 

lief in evolution, viz: that the human embryo Creation 
passes through all stages of fish, reptile and ani- 
mal up to its perfected state before birth. This 
is wholly imaginary and untrue. It is human 
and nothing else in all its stages. The spinal 
cord at first is extended and develops faster 
than the upper structure, and its segmented ap- 
pearance is merely a series of constrictions to 
mark the nerve centers corresponding to the 
vertebrae. This extension of the spinal cord 
evolutionists call a tail. Later it is built into 
the structure and disappears from sight. In 
front of the bulb marking the cerebellum there 
gradually appears a series of five arches. When 
the embryo is fully developed the upper of these 
arches forms the upper jaw, the second the 
lower jaw, and the other three form the neck 
over the tongue and larynx. These arches have 
been called branchial arches from their fancied 
resemblance to the arches in the fish which sup- 
port the gills, but in man they have nothing 
whatever to do with the respiratory organs, as 
the branchial arches do in fish. It is claimed by 
evolutionists that there are about seventy ex- 
amples in man's anatomy of vestiges of former 
animals in the line of his descent, but they are 
all, with one exception, as imaginary as those 

25 



Am I Immortal ? 

Creation already referred to. That exception is the ver- 
miform appendix which may have some present 
purpose not understood, or may have come 
down from the time when man subsisted wholly 
upon vegetables and fruits. 

What is Man? Judson D. Burns, M. D. — Because 
the vital elements of any species when fused will pro- 
duce only the vital principle of the same, and only the 
same as that of the species from which the vital ele- 
ments came, it is impossible that the progenitor of man 
could have been one of the lower animals. It is not 
only an improbability, but an impossibility. Yes, I 
can say, this being absolutely the case, there never was 
an intermediate form of life on this earth ; and that 
change of what we call genera by natural descent is 
also an impossibility. Then there never was a Pythe- 
canthropus erectus on this earth, save only as it existed 
in Dr. Haeckel's brain. Therefore, it is plain that the 
progenitor of man could not have been an animal in 
the personality of the chimpanzee, or gorilla, one of 
which is the hypothecated progenitor of the hypothe- 
cated "Pythecanthropus erectus ," the missing link. 

Now what seems to have been the order of 

creation according to the Bible? As the earth 

was developed by Divine wisdom and power, 

new conditions of life were created, and new 

forms of life were created to correspond. First 

the lower forms and then fishes in the water; 

then reptiles in the slime; then progressively 

birds and great mammals in the rich tropical 

vegetation; then the domestic animals; and 

finally, man. God loves to create life, and peo- 



Am I Immortal ? 

pies a drop of water, or even the very dust, with Creation 
living forms. God gives life and He takes it 
away. He has created and given life progress- 
ively to all creatures from the lowest up to man. 
May not the next step be from man mortal to 
man immortal? 

The theory of evolution is very interesting 
when confined to its proper limitations, but 
when presented as a substitute for Creative wis- 
dom and power, without the intervention of 
God, it utterly fails to meet the necessary re- 
quirements and is merely a modern superstition. 
Looking away from all animate creation about 
which such questions have arisen, consider the 
mighty worlds in space being swung unerringly 
in their vast orbits, and how irrational it would 
be to try to account for their existence by "na- 
tural selection, environment and survival of the 
fittest." How much more reasonable it is to 
believe that, "In the beginning God created the 
heavens and the earth." 

There cannot be thought without a thinker, 
and the whole universe abounds with evidences 
of thought. A thinker is a person, and the hu- 
man mind reaches the conviction that the 
Thinker who has established a reign of law 
throughout the universe must be a Person. 

27 



Am I Immortal ? 

Creation The agnostic says, we cannot know God. But 
even he in the study of the universe is obliged to 
admit the necessity of a great First Cause, and 
that this Power is omnipotent, omnipresent and 
has always existed. 

Many believers in evolution say, all things 
must have evolved from a single cell; all organ- 
isms consist of cells; these cells take on new 
forms to perform new functions, and so the dif- 
ferent organs of creatures and the different 
forms of creatures have been built up. But 
even so, what about the Power causing these 
cells to carry on such work directed to an intel- 
ligent end? Even Darwin himself said: "I am 
inclined to look upon everything as resulting 
from designed laws." 

That God may have implanted a higher or- 
der upon a lower by creative act in all the stages 
of creation from organisms of a single cell up 
to man, seems very reasonable, if not probable. 
And so even a Christian may believe in an evo- 
lutionary order of development, in that sense, 
and may say, I am existing today, and a little 
while ago I did not exist. I am an organism 
and the Organizer existed before I was or- 
ganized. That Organizer will exist after I am 
disorganized by death, to reorganize me into a 

28 



Am I Immortal ? 

higher and immortal form of life> if it shall Creation 
please Him to do so. 

The World of Life. Alfred Russell Wallace, L.L. 
D., D. C. L. 9 F, R. S. — Neither Darwinism nor any- 
other theory in science or philosophy can give more 
than a secondary explanation of the phenomena of 
life. Some deeper power or cause has always to be 
postulated. The mysterious power we term life will 
surely never be explained as many suppose it will be, 
in terms of mere matter and motion. ****** 
But beyond even these marvels is the greater marvel of 
that ever-present organizing and guiding Power, which, 
to take a single example, generation after generation, 
and even year after year in the life of the individual, 
builds up anew that most wonderful congeries of organs, 
the bird's covering of feathers. Not only is a feather 
a miracle of complex structure, in every minutest part 
adapted for most important and even vital ends, but it 
may be safely stated that no two feathers on any bird 
are absolutely identical, varying in contour, in curva- 
ture, in rigidity, in size, by almost imperceptible gra- 
dations, so that each fulfills its special purpose ; and 
beyond this, in a great majority of cases, these feath- 
ers are adorned with colors which are infinitely varied 
and which we can so often perceive to be of use to the 
individual, the sex, or the species, that we conceive all 
to be so. But to produce the results of well denned 
and very constant colors, shades and patterns on the 
outer surface of the bird, each feather has to be colored 
on that portion of its surface which is not overlapped 
by the adjoining feathers at the time when the color is 
needed, and this is invariably the case. Every attempt 
to explain these phenomena — even Darwin's highly 
complex and difficult theory of Pangenesis— utterly 
breaks down ; so that now even the extreme monists like 
Haeckel, are driven to the supposition that every ulti- 

29 



Am I Immortal f 

Creation mate cell is a conscious, intelligent individual, that 
knows where to go, and what to do, goes there and 
does it ! These unavailing efforts to explain the inex- 
plicable, whether in the details of any one living thing, 
or in the origin of life itself, seem to me to lead us to 
the irresistible conclusion that beyond and above all 
terrestrial agencies, there is some great source of 
energy and guidance which in unknown ways pervades 
every form of organized life, and of which we ourselves 
are the ultimate and foreordained outcome. 



Sir J. W. Dawson, L. L. D., F. R. S., F. G. S.— 
The only rational hypothesis of human origin in the 
present state of our knowledge of this subject is, that 
man must have been produced under some circum- 
stances in which animal food was not necessary to him, 
in which he was exempt from the attacks of the more 
formidable animals and in less need of protection from 
the inclemency of the weather than is the case with 
any modern apes ; and that his life as a hunter and 
warrior began after he had by his knowledge and skill 
secured to himself the means of subduing nature by 
force and cunning. This implies that man at first was 
a rational being, capable of understanding nature, and 
it accords much more nearly with the old story of Eden 
in the book of Genesis than with any modern theories 
of evolution. * * * * The Glacial period, with its 
snows and ice, had passed away, and the world rejoiced 
in a spring time of renewed verdure and beauty. Many 
great and formidable beasts of the Tertiary time had 
disappeared in the revolutions which had occurred, and 
the existing fauna of the northern hemisphere had been 
established on the land. Then it was that man was in- 
troduced by an act of creative power. 
"And God said, Let us make man in our image, after 
our likeness ; and let them rule over the fish of the sea, 
and over the birds of the air, and over the herbivora, 
and over all the land. And God blessed them and said 
30 



Am I Immortal ? 

unto them, Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth Creation 
and subdue it. 

' i And the Lord God formed the man of the dust of the 
ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, 
and man became a living being. And the Lord God 
planted a garden, eastward in Eden, and there He 
placed the man whom He had formed. And out of the 
ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is 
pleasant to the sight and good for food. And a river 
went out of Eden to water the garden, and parted from 
thence, becoming four heads (of great rivers). The 
name of the first is Pison, compassing the whole land of 
Chavila, where there is gold, and the gold of that land 
is good; there is (also) pearl and agate . . . And the 
Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden 
of Eden, to cultivate it and to take care of it." 

Before leaving this most ancient and most beautiful 
history, we may say that it implies several things of 
much importance to our conceptions of primeval man. 
It implies a center of creation for man, and a group of 
companion animals and plants, and an intention to dis- 
pense in his case with any struggle for existence. It 
implies, also, that man was not to be a lazy savage, 
but a caretaker and utilizer, by his mind and his bodily 
labor, of the things given to him ; and it also implies 
intelligent submission on his part to his Maker, and 
spiritual appreciation of His plans and intentions. It 
further implies that man was, in process of time, from 
Eden, to colonize the earth, and subdue its wildness, 
so as to extend the conditions of Eden widely over its 
surface. Lastly, a portion of the record not quoted 
above, but necessary to the consistency of the story, 
implies, that in virtue of his spiritual nature, and on 
certain conditions, man, though in bodily frame of the 
earth, earthly, like the other animals, was to be ex- 
empted from the common law of mortality which had 
all along prevailed, and which continued to prevail, 
even among the animals of Eden. 
31 



Am I Immortal ? 
REVELATION— THE BIBLE. 

So far we have been considering the work of 
creation as it may be seen in all plants and ani- 
mals existing now. Is there a greater revelation 
of God than we find in nature? That is what 
the Bible purports to be. 

There are some things which the human mind 
unaided could never have solved, and these re- 
late to infinity. And because beyond the powers 
of our finite human mind, limited as it is by the 
transitory affairs of this life and by time, if we 
are to have certain knowledge of the possibility 
of a limitless life beyond this, it must be re- 
vealed to our spirits by the Infinite Spirit. 

We are told of what is contained in the Bible, 
that: "Holy men of God spake as they were 
moved by the Holy Spirit" (2 Peter 1 : 21). 

Tennyson has said: 

Speak to Him thou for He hears, 
And spirit with Spirit can meet; 
Closer is He than breathing, 
And nearer than hands or feet. 

Even men are able to use one of the forces 
God has made and communicate with each other 
from long distances by wireless telegraphy. 

If it is possible for human minds to communi- 
cate with each other by wireless telegraphy or 
even by telepathy when separated by distance, 
39 



Am I Immortal ? 

shall it be considered strange that the Divine Revelation 
Mind should communicate with the human mind tlle Bil)le 
seeking to reach upward to its Creator? The 
record of great numbers of the human race in 
all countries, aspiring to such communication, is 
the best answer to this. 

This greater revelation of God is found in the 
Bible, and the devout examination of it by thous- 
ands of the greatest minds the world has ever 
known, has resulted in the fullest acknowledg- 
ment of its claims to be the Word of God. 

From its account of the beginning of Crea- 
tion to its authentic history of Jesus Christ the 
Lord on earth, it fully meets the desire for a 
revelation to men of their relation to their Crea- 
tor and Redeemer. Man's conscience confirms 
the truth of its teachings. Men everywhere 
have an instinctive sense of God; of a judgment 
to come after death; and of a hope of life be- 
yond the grave. 

It is the oldest book in the world, far ante- 
dating any other history extant. It everywhere 
proclaims the personality and almightiness of 
God, the Creator of all things, and the great 
First Cause of the whole universe. It reveals 
the love of God as our Heavenly Father, and 
His unwillingness that any one of us should 

forfeit everlasting life (Ezek. 18:27); that 
33 



Am I Immortal ? 

Revelation "He is not willing that any should perish, but 
the Bible that all should come to repentance" (2 Peter 
3:9). 

It gives an account of the whole Creation 
compressed into the space of a page or two; 
and with all the learning of modern scientists, 
let any of them try to express what they think 
of the order of creation and put it into such 
limited space. 

The account in Genesis of the Flood, and of 
man's early history on earth, is confirmed by 
the clay tablets and monuments unearthed in 
comparatively recent years in Babylonia. These 
record traditions pointing back to the flood. 
These do not show, as some claim, that the 
Hebrews obtained their religious beliefs from 
the Babylonians, but that they held in common 
those ancient traditions. 

Concerning the Deluge, Prof. Dawson has said : A 
still more important speculation, arising from the facts 
recently developed as to prehistoric men, is the possible 
equivalency with the historical deluge of the great 
subsidence which closed the residence of paleocosmic 
men in Europe, as well as that of several of the large 
mammalia. Lenormant and others have shown that 
the wide ancient acceptance of the tradition of the 
Deluge among all the great branches of the human 
family necessitates the belief that, independently of the 
Biblical history, this great event must be accepted as 
a historical fact which very deeply impressed itself 

34 



Am I Immortal ? 

upon the minds of all the early nations. Now, if the Revelation 
Deluge is to be accepted as historical, and if a similar — the Bible 
break interrupts the geological history of man, separat- 
ing extinct races from those which still survive, why 
may we not correlate the two ? 

Rationalistic literary critics had long claimed 
that the history of the Hittite nation in the 
Bible was one of the Bible "myths," because 
no evidence of their existence had ever been 
discovered in any tablet or monument, until 
further excavations revealed abundant evidence 
of their former existence and high civilization. 
So it has been again and again. German ra- 
tionalistic literary critics of the Bible, who have 
had an ignorant and somewhat noisy following, 
and some of whom are going up and down the 
country lecturing today as if it were a matter 
of any importance what they do not believe, are 
constantly holding one another up to ridicule. 
Like the false witnesses against Christ, they do 
not agree with each other, and pull one another 
to pieces. As Dr. Charles H. Thwing said not 
long ago in an article in Harper's Magazine: 
"The Germans are more willing to push for- 
ward their hypotheses without regard to the 
limitation of facts." 

To follow the methods of these rationalistic 
critics of the Bible, one could show in the same 



35 



Am I Immortal ? 

Revelation way that the Declaration of Independence was 
—the Bible wr itten in part in several different centuries, or 
that Tennyson's poems were the production of 
many different writers, and that the man Ten- 
nyson, as a writer, probably did not exist at all. 
The intelligent literary investigation of the 
Scriptures is very interesting and instructive, 
but to be of much value, it must be conducted 
by believers. "Now the natural man receiveth 
not the things of the Spirit of God: for they 
are foolishness unto him; and he cannot know 
them, because they are spiritually discerned" 
(1 Cor. 2: 14). 

The history of the Jews shows the wonderful 
fulfillment of Old Testament Prophecies, which 
the Prophets are said to have received from God 
in an audible voice (1 Sam. 8), so that they al- 
ways announced their prophecies with, "Thus 
saith the Lord." Not only have these prophe- 
cies been fulfilled in the past, but they are being 
fulfilled in the history of the Jewish race at the 
present time; which after the dispersion were 
to be a separate people, but not a nation, until 
God shall restore them again to Palestine. 
"For no prophecy ever came by the will of man ; 
but men spake of God, being moved by the Holy 
Spirit" (2 Peter 1:21). We have a record in 

36 



Am I Immortal? 

the Bible of these communications coming down Revelation 
for a period of thousands of years. We have the Bible 
in the Bible an account of mankind on the earth 
not from their own standpoint alone, but from 
that of their Creator. 

The Bible then, confirmed as it is by con- 
science, which is recognized as the voice of God 
in the soul; confirmed by the fossil remains in 
the rocks of the earth's crust; confirmed by the 
records of the human race on earth; confirmed 
by the wonderful fulfillment of its prophecies, 
upon which so many books have been written; 
and confirmed by the history and transforming 
power of Christianity; has been accepted by 
devout minds everywhere as a revelation from 
God, revealing Him to man as He could not be 
revealed in nature, and opening up the way for 
man to regain immortal life. 

It gives an account of God's creation of man; 
of man's fall from innocency; of his becoming 
mortal through sin; of his possible restoration 
to immortality through a Redeemer; of the ad- 
vent of that Redeemer on earth, paying for us 
the penalty of sin; of a resurrection from the 
grave; of a day of judgment; of immortal life 
to those transformed by Christ's Spirit; and of 
a second death to those who are finally impeni- 
tent and reject Him. 

37 



Am I Immortal ? 

Revelation Man's conscience responds to its teachings 
the Bible intuitively. We find throughout nature that all 
natural instincts are to be depended on, and 
that they relate closely to the welfare and ex- 
istence of the creature. Any living creature 
that did not follow the leadings of its instincts 
would soon cease to exist. The birds follow 
an instinct of migration and go south in winter. 
The larger waterfowl follow an instinctive 
sense in the spring in flying over continents and 
oceans on the way to the farther north where 
they may raise their young in security. 

There is a Power whose care 

Teaches thy way along that trackless coast, 

The desert and illimitable air, 

Lone wandering, but not lost ! 



He who from zone to zone 

Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight, 

In the long path which I must tread alone, 

Will lead my steps aright. 

William Cullen Bryant. 

The waterfowl are guided safely by following 
a God-given instinct. If they did not follow 
the leading of this instinct they would very soon 
be exterminated. And may this not be equally 
true of man also, if he follows not the leading 
of his God-given conscience? 



38 



Am I Immortal ? 

Have I knowledge ? Confounded it shrivels at Revelation 

wisdom laid bare. the Bible 

Have I forethought? How purblind, how blank 
to the Infinite Care. 

Do I task any faculty highest, to image 

success ? 
I but open my eyes, — and perfection, no more 

and no less, 
In the kind I imagined, full-fronts me, and 

God is seen God 
In the star, in the stone, in the flesh and the 

soul and the clod. 

And thus looking within and around me, I ever 

renew 
(With that stoop of the soul which in bending 

upraises it too) 
The submission of man's nothing-perfect to 

God's all-complete, 
As by each new obeisance in spirit I climb 

to His feet. 

— Robert Browning. 



39 



Am I Immortal ? 
WHAT THE BIBLE TEACHES. 

We are told in Genesis that: "In the begin- 
ning God created the heavens and the earth" 
(Gen. 1:1). We are told concerning the crea- 
tion of man : "And God created man in His own 
image; in the image of God created He him; 
male and female created He them" (Gen. 
1:27). In our innermost being, therefore, we 
are patterned after God ; and that is why it was 
possible for God to become incarnate in Jesus 
Christ our Lord, and to take upon Himself our 
nature. 

We are taught in the book of Genesis that 
Adam and Eve were to have immortal life upon 
the condition of perfect obedience and perfect 
submission to the will of God; that they dis- 
obeyed and rebelled against God, and became 
mortal ; and that death followed because of their 
sin, according to the law of their creation. 

"And God commanded the man, saying: Of 
every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat, 
but of the tree of the knowledge of good and 
evil, thou shalt not eat of it, for in the day thou 
eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die;" or as it is 
in the margin, "dying thou shalt die" (Gen. 
2:16). 



40 



Am I Immortal ? 

"Now the serpent was more subtle than any What 
beast of the field which God had made. And the Bible 
he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye 
shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And 
the woman said unto the serpent, of the fruit of 
the trees of the garden we may eat; but of the 
fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the 
garden, God hath said, ye shall not eat, neither 
shall ye touch it lest ye die. And the serpent 
said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die; 
for God doth know that in the day ye eat 
thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye 
shall be as God, knowing good from evil. And 
when the woman saw that the tree was good for 
food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and 
that the tree was to be desired to make one 
wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, 
and she gave also unto her husband and he did 
eat" (Gen. 3:3). 

"And God said, Behold the man is become as 
one of us, to know good and evil, and now lest 
he put forth his hand and also take of the tree 
of life and eat and live forever; therefore God 
sent him forth from the garden of Eden to till 
the ground from which he was taken. So He 
drove out the man ; and He placed at the east of 
the garden of Eden, the cherubim, and the flame 

41 



Teaches 



Am I Immortal f 

What of a sword which turned every way, to keep the 
the Bible way f the tree f U f e » ( Gen S :22). 

It would seem as if the woman saw the ser- 
pent in the tree eating the forbidden fruit, and 
as it did not die, and as it was the wisest of all 
creatures, she concluded that its superior wis- 
dom must come from eating the fruit, and that if 
she ate it she would be wiser also, and so she 
disbelieved God and disobeyed, and then Adam 
took the fruit from her and disobeyed also, and 
according to the law of their creation, they be- 
came mortal because of sin, and the penalty of 
death followed. 

But however this may have been, whether an 
actual occurrence recorded in primitive collo- 
quial terms or an allegorical account of how 
man forfeited immortality, the teaching is per- 
fectly plain, that death passed upon them be- 
cause of their wilful disobedience, and that they 
were kept from eating of the tree of life lest 
they should live forever in sin. 

We are told that although Eve was deceived, 
Adam was not deceived, but ate knowing the 
penalty; perhaps rather than to be separated 
from Eve (1 Tim. 2: 14). 

After Adam and Eve had become mortal 
through sin, what does the Bible teach? Using 

42 



Am I Immortal f 

the figure of a serpent to represent the spirit of What 
evil, as is so often done in the Bible, it teaches tlle Bible 
that "the seed of the woman should bruise the 
head of the serpent" (Gen. 3: 15) — the first 
prophecy of the incarnation. It teaches of a 
coming One who would redeem man from the 
consequences of his sin. 



43 



Am I Immortal ? 
SACRIFICES. 

Sacrifices were established for sin. The sac- 
rifice gave the life of the animal for the life for- 
feited by sin; and was typical of the coming 
sacrifice of "the lamb of God who taketh away 
the sin of the world" (John 1:29). 

They were told about the sacrifice: "For the 
life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given 
it to you upon the altar to make atonement for 
your souls ; for it is the blood that maketh atone- 
ment by reason of the life" (Levit. 17: 11). 
Paul said referring to Christ's sacrifice: "And 
without shedding of blood there is no remis- 
sion" (Heb. 9: 22). Or in other words, without 
the giving up of life in His sacrifice, there 
would have been no remission of sin. 

From the fall of man from innocency in Adam 
and Eve, in all his life of sin on earth up to the 
crucifixion of our Lord and Saviour Jesus 
Christ, men offered sacrifices for sin and looked 
forward in faith to the coming Redeemer. So 
did Adam and Abel. So did Noah after leaving 
the ark. So did Abraham, of whom Christ said : 
"He rejoiced to see my day" (John 8: 56) ; and 
so did all succeeding believers. Thus repent- 
ance for sin, and faith looking forward to the 

coming Redeemer, typified by the sacrifice, was 
44 



Am I Immortal I 

continued through all the ages from Adam until Sacrifices 
the sacrifice of our Lord and Saviour Jesus 
Christ. Even the Jews abandoned sacrifices 
after the crucifixion. 

Fifteen hundred years before the great sac- 
rifice on Calvary, the patriarch Job, afflicted 
with boils and tried by Satan, could say: "But 
I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that He 
shall stand at the last upon the earth; and al- 
though after my skin this body be destroyed, yet 
in my flesh shall I see God ; whom I shall see for 
myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not an- 
other" (Job 19: 25). Job was confident that al- 
though after death worms should destroy his 
body, his Redeemer would stand at the last day 
upon the earth and that he would see Him when 
resurrected and clothed in a new body. 

In that wonderful chapter on Faith — the 

eleventh chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews 

— and in following out the references to texts of 

the Bible, we find that these worthies "all died 

in faith, not having received the promises" — the 

promises of resurrection from the dead and life 

immortal. "And these all, having had witness 

borne to them through their faith, received not 

the promise, God having provided some better 

thing concerning us, that apart from us they 

should not be made perfect" (Heb. 11 : 40). 
45 



Am I Immortal ? 

Sacrifices We find that Abraham was willing to sacrifice 
Isaac at God's command, because he knew that 
Isaac would be restored to life again at the 
resurrection day. Moses "accounted the re- 
proach of Christ greater riches than the treas- 
ures of Egypt; for he looked to the recompense 
of reward" — at the resurrection. 

According to an ancient Jewish tradition the 
Lord resurrected Moses immediately after death ; 
and support might be given to this belief by the 
inability of the Israelites to find his body (Deut. 
34: 6) ; by the dispute concerning it referred to 
in the Epistle of Jude; and by his appearance 
with Elijah in the Mount of Transfiguration 
(Matt. 17). 

We are told that "women received their dead 
by a resurrection, and others were tortured not 
accepting their deliverance, that they might ob- 
tain a better resurrection" (Heb. 11:35). 

The resurrection was looked forward to in 
faith by all believers in redemption, from Adam 
onward. The prophets proclaimed it; David 
wrote of it in the Psalms ; and when the apostles 
of our Lord proclaimed it to all men they 
pointed the Jews to their own prophets in con- 
firmation of their "good tidings." 

"That he may send the Christ who hath been 

appointed for you, even Jesus: whom the heav- 
46 



Am I Immortal ? 

ens must receive until the time of the restora- Sacrifices 
Hon of all things whereof God spake by the 
mouth of his holy prophets which have been 
since the world began" (Acts 4: 20). 

"Believing all things which are according to 
the law, and which are written in the prophets: 
having hope toward God, which these also 
themselves look for, that there shall be a resur- 
rection both of the just and unjust" (Acts 
24: 14). 

In the seventh chapter of Second Maccabees 
in the Apocrypha, written originally B. C. 150, 
giving an account of a Jewish woman and her 
sons being tortured to death by King Seleucus 
because they would not eat of that which had 
been sacrificed to the idol god Bacchus ; we read 
of one of the sons: "And when he was in the 
last gasp he said, Thou miscreant, dost release 
us out of this present life, but the King of the 
world shall raise up us, who have died for His 
laws, unto an eternal renewal of life/ 9 

All who repented of their sins and looked for- 
ward in faith to the coming Redeemer typified 
for them in the sacrifice, shall doubtless be 
raised from the dust in new and "glorious" 
bodies by our Lord and Redeemer at the Resur- 
rection Day, according to the Scriptures. 



47 



Am I Immortal f 
THE ADVENT OF THE SON OF GOD. 

When thou tookest upon Thee to redeem man, 
Thou didst humble Thyself to be born of a virgin. 

"For unto us a child is born, unto us a Son 
is given; and the government shall be upon His 
shoulders: and His name shall be called Won- 
derful, Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting 
Father, Prince of Peace" (Is. 9:6). So it was 
revealed to the prophet Isaiah, and so he pro- 
phesied of the Lord Jesus nearly a thousand 
years before His advent upon the earth. Finally, 
"when the fullness of the time came, God sent 
forth his Son, born of a woman" (Gal. 4:4), 
and Jesus Christ came into the world as a babe, 
and grew up and lived on earth a sinless God- 
man. 

We have fully authenticated historical ac- 
counts in the New Testament of His birth, life, 
crucifixion, resurrection and ascension. His 
birth was a wonderful miracle; as was also the 
creation of the first man. If Christ were really 
the Son of God who created the universe and 
everything on earth, we would expect super- 
natural evidences of His wisdom and power; 
and these are given abundantly by four histori- 
ans living on earth with Him at the time. If 

48 



Am I Immortal ? 

God's power and intention be admitted there is The Advent 
nothing more incredible in a miracle than in an °* the 
ordinary occurrence in nature, for both are alike 
the natural result of supernatural energy. 

We have been considering the miracles of na- 
ture, which are all about us, and which no one 
can explain. The whole creation shows God's 
power, and affirms God's intention. The incar- 
nation and resurrection of the Son of God are 
evidences of the power of God beyond our com- 
prehension, just as the miracles of the universe 
are beyond our comprehension. 

In the New Testament we have statements of 
fact about these events and not statements of 
opinion. The truth of a miracle depends on the 
evidence of a fact. If the fact exists, it must be 
accounted for in some way. We have the his- 
torical accounts of these two events in the New 
Testament, and they are the foundation pillars 
of Christianity. Without them Christianity as 
it is would have been impossible. The whole 
world has been changed by the knowledge of 
them. 

We have two historical accounts of the birth 
of the Son of God, independent and yet corrob- 
orative of each other. In Matthew's record we 
have the account of His birth, presumably 

49 



Am I Immortal ? 

The Advent through Joseph, in which mention is always 
of the m ade of "the young child and His mother." In 

Son of God Luke > s aC count, we have the record of His birth, 
presumably through Mary, telling of the an- 
nunciation, and giving the facts more from a 
woman's standpoint. All believers must think 
reverently of the pure young virgin of the Jew- 
ish race and lineage of King David (Luke 1 : 32) 
whom Divine wisdom chose as best -fitted in all 
the world to be the mother of the Son of God. 
In a sense it might be said, that as through 
woman came sin, through woman also came sal- 
vation by the Son of God. 



50 



Am I Immortal $ 

THE BIRTH OF OUR 

LORD AND SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST. 

MATTHEW'S ACCOUNT. 

"Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this 
wise: When His mother Mary had been be- 
trothed to Joseph, before they came together, 
she was found with child of the Holy Spirit. 
And Joseph, her husband, being a righteous man 
and not willing to make her a public example, 
was minded to put her away privily. But when 
lie thought on these things, behold an angel of 
the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, 
Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto 
thee Mary thy wife; for that which is conceived 
in her is of the Holy Spirit. And she shall bring 
forth a son; and thou shalt call his name Jesus; 
for it is He that shall save His people from their 
sins. 

"Now all this is come to pass, that it might be 
fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through 
the prophet, saying, Behold the virgin shall be 
with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they 
shall call his name Immanuel (Is. 7: 14), which 
is, being interpreted, God with us. And Joseph 
arose from his sleep, and did as the angel of the 
Lord commanded him, and took unto him his 
wife; and knew her not until she had brought 

51 



and Saviour 
Jesus Christ 



Am I Immortal ? 

The Birth of forth a son; and he called his name Jesus 
Our Lord ( Matt . i : i 8 -25). 

"Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of 
Judea in the days of Herod the King, behold 
wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, say- 
ing, Where is he that is born king of the Jews? 
for we saw his star in the East, and are come to 
worship him. 

"And when Herod the King heard it, he was 
troubled and all Jerusalem with him. And 
gathering together all the chief priests and 
scribes of the people, he enquired of them where 
the Christ should be born. And they said unto 
him, In Bethlehem of Judea ; for thus it is writ- 
ten through the prophet, And thou Bethlehem, 
land of Judah, art in no wise least among the 
princes of Judah: for out of thee shall come 
forth a governor, who shall be shepherd of my 
people Israel; whose goings forth are from of 
old, from everlasting" (Mic. 5:2). 

"Then Herod privily called the wise men, and 
learned of them exactly at what time the star 
appeared. And he sent them to Bethlehem, and 
said, Go and search out exactly concerning the 
young child ; and when ye have found him, bring 
me word, that I may also come and worship 
him. 



52 



Am I Immortal ? 

"And they having heard the king, went their The Birth of 

way; and lo, the star which they saw in the Our Lord 

. i i and Saviour 

east, went before them, till it came and stood T n ,. . 

J6SUS 1/UriST 

over where the young child was. And when 
they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding 
great joy. And they came into the house and 
saw the young child with Mary his mother; and 
they fell down and worshipped him; and open- 
ing their treasures they offered unto him gifts, 
gold and frankincense and myrrh, and being 
warned of God in a dream that they should not 
return to Herod they departed unto their own 
country another way. 

"Now, when they were departed, behold an 
angel of the Lord appeareth unto Joseph in a 
dream, saying, Arise and take the young child 
and His mother and flee into Egypt, and be thou 
there until I tell thee; for Herod will seek the 
young child to destroy him. And he arose and 
took the young child and His mother by night, 
and departed into Egypt; and was there until 
the death of Herod; that it might be fulfilled 
which was spoken by the Lord through the 
prophet, saying: Out of Egypt have I called 
my son (Hos. 11: 1). 

"Then Herod, when he saw that he was 
mocked of the wise men, was exceeding wroth, 

53 



Am I Immortal ? 



The Birth of and sent forth, and slew all the male children 

Our Lord 
and Saviour 
Jesus Christ 



Our Lord that were in Bethlehem, and in all the borders 
thereof, from two years old and under, accord- 



ing to the time which he had carefully learned 
of the wise men. Then was fulfilled that which 
was spoken through Jeremiah the prophet, say- 
ing, A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and 
great mourning, Rachel weeping for her chil- 
dren; and she would not be comforted, because 
they are not (Jer. 31 : 15). 

"But when Herod was dead, behold an angel 
of the Lord appeareth in a dream to Joseph in 
Egypt, saying, Arise and take the young child 
and His mother, and go into the land of Israel; 
for they are dead that sought the young child's 
life. And he arose and took the young child 
and His mother, and came into the land of 
Israel. 

"But when he learned that Archelaus was 
reigning over Judea in the room of his father 
Herod, he was afraid to go thither; and being 
warned of God in a dream, he withdrew into 
the parts of Galilee, and came and dwelt in a 
city called Nazareth; that it might be fulfilled 
which was spoken through the prophets, that 
He should be called a Nazarene" (Matt. 1: 18 
to 25; 1 to 23). 

54. 



Am I Immortal ? 

THE BIRTH OF OUR 

LORD AND SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST. 

LUKE'S ACCOUNT. 

"Now in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel 
was sent from God into a city of Galilee, named 
Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose 
name was Joseph, of the house of David; and 
the virgin's name was Mary. And he came in 
unto her, and said, Hail, thou that art highly 
favored, the Lord is with thee. But she was 
greatly troubled at the saying, and cast in her 
mind what manner of salutation this might be. 
And the angel said unto her, Fear not Mary, for 
thou hast found favor with God. And, behold, 
thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth 
a son, and shalt call his name Jesus. He shall 
be great, and shall be called the Son of the Most 
High, and the Lord God shall give unto Him the 
throne of His father David; and He shall reign 
over the house of Jacob forever; and of His 
kingdom there shall be no end. 

"And Mary said unto the angel, How shall 
this be, seeing that I know not a man? And 
the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy 
Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of 
the Most High shall overshadow thee ; wherefore 
also the holy thing which is begotten shall be 

55 



Am I Immortal ? 



The Birth of called the Son of God. And behold Elizabeth, 

Our Lord 
and Saviour 
Jesus Christ 



Our Lord thy kinswoman, she also hath conceived a son in 
her old age ; and this is the sixth month with her 
that was called barren. For no word of God 



shall be void of power. 

"And Mary said : Behold the handmaid of the 
Lord ; be it unto me according to thy word. And 
the angel departed from her. 

"And Mary arose in these days and went into 
the hill country with haste, into a city of Judah ; 
and entered into the house of Zacharias and 
saluted Elizabeth. And it came to pass, when 
Elizabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the 
babe leaped in her womb; and Elizabeth was 
filled with the Holy Spirit; and she lifted up 
her voice with a loud cry, and said, Blessed art 
thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of 
thy womb. And whence is this to me, that the 
mother of my Lord should come unto me? For 
behold, when the voice of thy salutation came 
into my ears, the babe leaped in my womb for 
joy. And blessed is she that believed; for there 
shall be a fulfillment of the things which have 
been spoken to her from the Lord. 

"And Mary said, My soul doth magnify the 
Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my 
Saviour. He hath looked upon the low estate of 

56 



Am I Immortal ? 

His handmaid: for behold, from henceforth all The Birth of 
generations shall call me blessed. For He that is ^ ur ^ or ^ 

mighty hath done to me great things ; and holy 7* . u * 

A _ Jesus Christ 

is His name. And His mercy is unto genera- 
tions and generations of them that fear Him. 
He hath showed strength with His arm; He 
hath scattered the proud in the imagination of 
their heart; He hath put down princes from 
their thrones, and hath exalted them of low de- 
gree. The hungry He hath filled with good 
things; and the rich He hath sent empty away. 
He hath given help to Israel his servant, that 
He might remember mercy (as He spake unto 
our fathers) toward Abraham and his seed for- 
ever. And Mary abode with her about three 
months, and returned unto her house. (Luke 
1:26 to 56). 

"Now it came to pass in those days, there 
went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all 
the world should be enrolled. This was the first 
enrollment made when Quirinius was governor 
of Syria. And all went to enroll themselves, 
everyone in his own city. And Joseph also 
went up from Galilee, out of the city of Naza- 
reth, into Judea, the city of David, to enroll 
himself with Mary who was betrothed to him, 
being great with child. And it came to pass, 

57 



Am I Immortal ? 

The Birth of while they were there, the days were fulfilled 
Our Lord tf\&t she should be delivered. And she brought 

^ • j. forth her first-born son ; and she wrapped him in 
Jesus Chnst # rir 

swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger, be- 
cause there was no room for them in the inn. 

"And there were shepherds in the same coun- 
try abiding in the field, and keeping watch by 
night over their flock. And an angel of the 
Lord stood by them, and the glory of the Lord 
shone around about them, and they were sore 
afraid. And the angel said unto them, Be not 
afraid; for behold I bring you good tidings of 
great joy which shall be to all the people; for 
there is born to you this day in the city of 
David, a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord. And 
this is the sign unto you. Ye shall find a babe 
wrapped in swaddling clothes, and lying in a 
manger. And suddenly there was with the angel 
a multitude of the heavenly host praising God 
and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and 
on earth peace among men in whom He is well 
pleased. 

"And it came to pass, when the angels went 
away from them into heaven, the shepherds said 
one to another, Let us now go even unto Bethle- 
hem, and see this thing that is come to pass, 
which the Lord hath made known unto us. And 



58 



and Saviour 
Jesus Christ 



Am I Immortal ? 

they came with haste, and found both Mary and The Birth of 
Joseph, and the babe lying in the manger. And Our Lord 
when they saw it, they made known concerning 
the saying which was spoken to them about this 
child. And all that heard it wondered at the 
things which were spoken unto them by the 
shepherds. But Mary kept all these sayings, 
pondering them in her heart. And the shepherds 
returned, glorifying and praising God for all 
the things that they had heard and seen, even as 
it was spoken unto them" (Luke 2: 1 to 20). 



5.9 



Am I Immortal ? 

THE SON OF MAN. 

Thou seemest human and Divine , 
The highest, holiest manhood Thou. 

The Son of Man was a favorite name of the 
Lord Jesus Christ for Himself ; as if in realizing 
His supernatural power we might be in danger 
of overlooking His glorious manhood. 

The wisdom and power of God are exhibited 
in nature in the sublimity of the mountains, in 
the beauty of landscapes and trees and flowers, 
and in the wonderful structures of animate life; 
but none of these reveal His moral qualities — 
His love, and patience, and compassion, and for- 
giveness. These were revealed in Jesus Christ 
our Lord. 

In manhood, in character, and in intellect, He 
was the greatest Personage who has ever ap- 
peared on earth. Napoleon, as a prisoner in the 
quiet of the island of St. Helena had time and 
opportunity to carefully study His life on earth 
as it is recorded in the New Testament, and 
arose from it saying: "I know men, but Jesus 
Christ was more than a man." 

Charles Lamb was discussing with some of the 
great literary lights of his day the intellectual 
grandeur of Shakespeare, when one of them 

60 



Am I Immortal ? 

said, "If Shakespeare were to come in here now The Son 
we would all take off our hats to him." "Yes," of Man 
said Lamb, "but if Jesus Christ were to come in 
here now, we would all kneel down before Him." 

Millions of lives have been completely changed 
by reading the record of His life as given by the 
four historians in the Gospels ; for in these every 
man may discover Jesus Christ for himself, and, 
O what it means for any one so to discover 
Him ! The elevation and purity of character, the 
matchless intellect, the love of humanity, the 
absolute unselfishness of life reached in Him 
their highest possibility. And in studying that 
matchless and adorable manhood, we may look 
up through it into the face of the Son of God. 

"The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air 
have nests, but the Son of man hath not where 
to lay his head" (Matt. 8: 20). 

"But that ye may know that the Son of man 
hath power on earth to forgive sins" (Matt. 
9:6). 

"The Son of man came eating and drinking, 
and they say, Behold, a gluttonous man, and a 
winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners" 
(Matt. 11:19). 

"For the Son of man is lord of the sabbath" 
(Matt. 12: 8). 

61 



Am I Immortal ? 

The Son "So shall the Son of man be three days and 
of Man t h r ee nights in the heart of the earth" (Matt. 
12:40). 

"Whom do men say that I the Son of man 
am?" (Matt. 16: 13). 

"Until the Son of man be risen from the dead" 
(Matt. 17:9). 

"Even so shall the Son of man also suffer of 
them" (Matt. 17: 12). 

"The Son of man shall be delivered up into the 
hands of men; and they shall kill him, and the 
third day he shall be raised up" (Matt. 17: 22). 

"Even as the Son of man came not to be min- 
istered unto, but to minister, and to give his life 
a ransom for many" (Matt. 20: 28). 

"And they shall see the Son of man coming 
on the clouds of heaven with power and great 
glory" (Matt. 24:30). 

"The Son of man also shall be ashamed of 
him when he cometh in the glory of his Father 
with the holy angels" (Mark 8:38). 

"Behold the Son of man is betrayed into the 
hands of sinners" (Mark 14:41). 

"Howbeit, when the Son of man cometh, shall 
he find faith on the earth ?" (Luke 18:8). 

"But Jesus said unto him, Judas betrayest 
thou the Son of man with a kiss?" (Luke 
22:48). 



Am I Immortal ? 

"And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wil- The Son 
derness, even so the Son of man must be lifted of Man 
up, that whosoever believeth, may in him have 
eternal life" (John 3: 14). 

"For as the Father hath life in Himself, even 
so gave he also to the Son to have life in him- 
self; and he gave him authority to execute judg- 
ment, because he is the Son of man" (John 
5:26). 

"Work not for the meat which perisheth, but 
for the meat which abideth unto eternal life, 
which the Son of man shall give unto you; for 
him the Father, even God, hath sealed" (John 
6:27). 

"What then if ye should behold the Son of 
man ascending where he was before?" (John 
6:62). 

"Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is 
glorified in him" (John 13:31). 

"But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, looked 
up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory 
of God and Jesus standing on the right hand of 
God, and said, Behold, I see the heavens opened 
and the Son of man standing on the right hand 
of God" (Acts 7:56). 

"And without controversy great is the mys- 
tery of godliness ; He who was manifested in the 

63 



Am I Immortal? 

The Son flesh, justified in the spirit, seen of angels, 
of Man preached among the nations, believed on in the 
world, received up in glory" (l Tim. 3: 16). 

Would I suffer for him that I love ? So wouldst Thou — 
so wilt Thou ! 

So shall crown Thee the topmost, ineffiablest, utter- 
most crown — 

And thy love fills infinitude wholly, nor leave up nor 
down 

One spot for the creature to stand in ! It is by no 
breath, 

Turn of eye, wave of hand, that salvation joins issue 
with death! 

As thy love is discovered almighty, almighty be proved 

Thy power, that exists with and for it, of being be- 
loved ! 

He who did most, shall bear most ; the strongest shall 
stand the most weak. 

'Tis the weakness in strength that I cry for ! my flesh 
that I seek 

In the Godhead ! I seek and I find it. O Saul it shall 
be 

A Face like my face that receives thee ; a Man like to 
me 

Thou shalt love and be loved by forever : a hand like 
this hand 

Shall throw open the gates of new life to thee ! 
See the Christ stand ! 

David to Saul— Robert Browning. 



64 



Am I Immortal ? 
THE SON OF GOD. 

The New Testament is a hand-book of the 
Christian Religion. Its teachings are plain, and 
authoritative, and final. Anything different from 
its teachings, whatever else it may be, is cer- 
tainly not the Christian religion. What follows 
is its unqualified teaching concerning the Lord 
Jesus Christ as the Son of God: 

"This is my beloved Son in whom I am well 
pleased" (Matt. 3: 17). 

"Of a truth thou art the Son of God" (Matt. 
14:33). 

"Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living 
God" (Matt. 16:16). 

"The gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God" 
(Mark 1:1). 

"Thou art my beloved Son in whom I am well 
pleased" (Mark 1: 11). 

"Thou art the Christ, the Son of God" (Luke 
4:41). 

"Jesus, thou Son of the most High God" 
(Luke 8:28). 

"And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among 
us (and we beheld His glory, glory as the only 
begotten from the Father), full of grace and 
truth" (John 1: 14). 

65 



Am I Immortal ? 

The Son "And I have seen and have borne witness that 
of God t his is the Son of God" (John 1 : 34). 

"Rabbi, thou art the Son of God; thou art the 
King of Israel" (John 1 : 49). 

"He that believeth on the Son hath eternal 
life" (John 3: 36). 

"For as the Father raiseth the dead and quick- 
eneth them — (bringeth them to life again) — even 
so the Son quickeneth whom He will" (John 
5:21). 

"But when Jesus heard it. He said, this sick- 
ness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, 
that the Son of God might be glorified thereby" 
(John 11:4). 

"But these are written that ye may believe 
that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and 
that believing, ye may have life in His name" 
(John 20: 31). 

"And straightway in the synagogue he pro- 
claimed Jesus, that he is the Son of God" (Acts 
9:20). 

"God sending his own Son in the likeness of 
sinful flesh" (Rom. 8:3). 

"God is faithful, through whom ye were called 
into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our 
Lord" (1 Cor. 1:9). 

"For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was 
preached among you by us" (2 Cor. 1:19). 
66 



Am I Immortal ? 

"Till we all attain unto the unity of the faith, The Son 
and of the knowledge of the Son of God" (Eph. of <*>* 
4:13). 

"God having of old time spoken unto the fath- 
ers in the prophets by divers portions and in 
divers manners, hath at the end of these days 
spoken unto us in His Son, whom he appointed 
heir of all things, through whom also he made 
the worlds" (Heb. 1:1). 

"Having then a great High Priest who hath 
passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of 
God, let us hold fast our confession" (Heb. 
4: 14). 

"Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus 
Christ, to them who have obtained a like precious 
faith with us in the righteousness of our God 
and Saviour, Jesus Christ" (2 Pet. 1:1). 

"This is good and acceptable in the sight of 
God our Saviour" (1 Tim. 2:3). 

"And our fellowship is with the Father and 
with his Son Jesus Christ" (1 John 1:3). 

"And the blood of Jesus Christ his Son, clean- 
seth us from all sin" (1 John 1:7). 

"Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath 
not the Father" (1 John 2:23). 

"God hath sent his only begotten Son into the 

world that we might live through him" (John 

4:9). 

67 



Am I Immortal ? 

The Son "Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the 
of God Son of God, God abideth in Him, and he in God" 
(1 John 4: 15). 

"And who is he that overcometh the world, but 
he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God" 
(1 John 5:5). 

"And the witness is this that God gave us 
eternal life and this life is in his Son" (1 John 
5: 11). 

"No man hath seen God at any time ; the only 
begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, 
he hath declared Him" (John 1 : 18). 

"Grace, mercy, peace shall be with us, from 
God the Father, and from Jesus Christ the Son 
of the Father, in truth and love" (2 John 1:3). 

"That which was from the beginning, that 

which we have heard, that which we have seen 

with our eyes, that which we beheld, and our 

hands handled, concerning the Word of life 

(and the life was manifested and we have seen 

and bear witness and declare unto you the life, 

the eternal life which was with the Father and 

was manifested unto us) ; that which we have 

seen and heard declare we unto you also, that ye 

also may have fellowship with us; yea, and our 

fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son 

Jesus Christ; and these things we write that 

your joy may be fulfilled" (1 John 1: 1). 
68 



Am I Immortal ? 

The unbeliever may say: "I will not believe The Son 
that a child was born without a human father." °* God 
That objection has always been made. The 
birth of Jesus Christ from a virgin has always 
been an offense to rationalism, and is just as 
much of an offense to the rationalistic literary 
critics of the Bible today. 

The thoughtful, intelligent Christian reasons 
about the birth of Christ in this way: There 
must have been a first man. Men of science 
agree upon this. The human mind comes to that 
conviction with certainty. The first man did not 
have a human father. If then God created a 
first man, was it any greater miracle for Him to 
become incarnate in a virgin, as "The second 
Adam" (1 Cor. 15:45) who would possess in 
Himself all the Divine qualities of which the 
best of mortal men are but shadows; and that 
this God-man should be sinless? 

There is no other way in which we can ac- 
count for Jesus Christ our Lord; for His sinless 
life; for His teachings; for His miracles of Di- 
vine power; for His death and resurrection. 
When rationalists attempt to explain these away, 
their explanations are far harder to believe than 
the simple historical record of the Gospels. 

The believer, in studying the New Testament, 
can look up into heaven from which Christ shall 
69 



Am I Immortal ? 

The Son come for him at the resurrection day, and can 

of God j j n i n repeating the creed of the early centuries, 

believed in by all who have any right to call 

themselves Christians: "Who was conceived by 

the Holy Ghost; born of the Virgin Mary." 

Jesus Christ lived a sinless life of perfect obe- 
dience and of perfect submission to the Divine 
will, and so according to the conditions of 
Adam's creation, He was entitled in Himself 
to everlasting life, and He offered up that life 
voluntarily as a complete and sufficient sacri- 
fice for Sin. 

We know not how God's spirit became incar- 
nate in the Virgin Mary. We know not how 
Christ's spirit enters into men and makes them 
"new creatures in Christ Jesus" (2 Cor. 5: 17) 
and "heirs of everlasting life" (Rom. 8: 17). 

The New Testament teaches that whosoever 
believes in Jesus Christ as the Son of God and 
Saviour of sinners; repents of his sins, and 
lives in obedience and righteousness according 
to Christ's commands, shall be given eternal 
life, and Christ shall raise him up out of the 
grave at the resurrection day (John 6:40). 

We are to have through Christ the everlasting 
life which Adam, and all who succeeded him, 
forfeited by sin. Millions upon millions have 



70 



Am I Immortal ? 

so believed and have had their lives transformed The Son 
by it; because Christianity is not a belief only, of God 
but a life. No one can really believe on Christ 
as the Son of God, without seeking to obey Him 
and striving to be like Him. 



71 



Am I Immortal ? 

WHAT THE LORD JESUS CHRIST 
SAID OF HIMSELF. 

"And they all said, art thou then the Son of 
God? And He said unto them, Ye say it be- 
cause I am" (Luke 22: 70). 

"Again the high priest asked him and said 
unto him, Art thou the Christ, the Son of the 
Blessed? And Jesus said, I am; and ye shall 
see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of 
power, and coming in the clouds of heaven' ' 
(Mark 14:61). 

"For God so loved the world that he gave his 
only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on 
Him should not perish, but have eternal life. 
For God sent not the Son into the world to con- 
demn the world; but that the world should be 
saved through Him" (John 3: 16). 

"The woman saith unto Him, I know that 
Messiah cometh (He that is called Christ) ; when 
He is come, He will declare unto us all things. 
Jesus saith unto her, I that speak unto thee am 
He" (John 4:25). 

"For as the Father raiseth the dead and 
giveth them life, even so the Son also giveth 
life to whom He will" (John 5: 21). 

"Marvel not at this: for the hour cometh, in 



Am I Immortal ? 

which all that are in the tombs shall hear his What the 
voice, and shall come forth ; they that have done ^ord 
good to the resurrection of life; and they that j*_ - 
have done evil, unto the resurrection of judg- Himself 
ment" (John 5:28). 

"For if ye believed Moses, ye would believe 
me; for he wrote of me. But if ye believed not 
his writings, how shall ye believe my words?" 
(John 5:46). 

"Jesus answered and said unto them, This 
is the work of God, that ye believe on Him 
whom He hath sent" (John 6: 29). 

"For this is the will of my Father, that every- 
one that beholdeth the Son, and belie veth on 
Him, should have eternal life; and I will raise 
him up at the last day" (John 6:40). 

"And He said unto them, Ye are from be- 
neath ; I am from above ; ye are of this world ; I 
am not of this world; I said therefore unto you, 
that ye shall die in your sins; for except ye be- 
lieve that I am He, ye shall die in your sins" 
(John 8:23). 

"If God were your Father, ye would love me, 
for I came forth, and am come from God; for 
neither have I come of myself, but He sent me" 
(John 8:42). 

"Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my 

day and he saw it and was glad. The Jews 
73 



Am I Immortal ? 

What the Thrreiexe jsaid unto hira, Thou are not yet fifty 

^ rd years old, and hast thou seen Abraham? Jesus 

'A f sa ^ un ^° them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, 

Hims elf before Abraham was born, I am" (John 8: 56). 

"Jesus heard that they had cast him out; and 
finding him, he said, Dost thou believe on the 
Son of God? He answered and said, And who 
is he, Lord, that I may believe on him? Jesus 
said unto him, Thou hast both seen him, and He 
it is that speaketh with thee. And he said, 
Lord I believe. And he worshipped Him" 
(John 9:35). 

"I came out from the Father, and am come 
into the world; again I leave the world and go 
unto the Father" (John 16:28). 

"And now Father, glorify thou me with thine 
own self with the glory which I had with thee 
before the world was" (John 17: 5). 

"I and the Father are one. The Jews an- 
swered him, For a good work we stone thee not, 
but for blasphemy; and because thou being a 
man makest thyself God" (John 10: 30). 

"But that ye may know that the Son of man 
hath power on earth to forgive sins (He saith 
to the sick of the palsy), I say unto thee, Arise, 
take up thy bed, and go into thy house. And he 
arose, and straightway took up the bed, and 

74 



Am I Immortal ? 

went forth before them all ; insomuch that they What the 

were all amazed and glorified God, saying, We ^ ord 

never saw it in this fashion" (Mark 4:41). z?\V - 

Said of 
"These things spake Jesus; and lifting up W | m qftl f 

His eyes to heaven, He said, Father the hour is 

come; glorify Thy Son, that the Son may glorify 

Thee; even as Thou gavest Him authority over 

all flesh, that whatsoever Thou hast given Him, 

to them He should give eternal life. And this is 

life eternal, that they should know Thee, and 

Him whom Thou didst send, Jesus Christ" 

(John 17:1). 

"And Jesus came to them and spake unto 
them, saying, All authority hath been given unto 
me in heaven and on earth. Go ye therefore and 
make disciples of all the nations, baptizing 
them in the name of the Father and of the Son 
and of the Holy Spirit; teaching them to ob- 
serve all things whatsoever I commanded you, 
and lo I am with you alway, even unto the end 
of the world' 9 (Matt. 28: 18). 

"I am the first and the last, and the living 
one; and I was dead, and behold I am alive for- 
evermore, and I have the keys of death and of 
Hades (the grave)" (Rev. 1:18). 



75 



Am I Immortal ? 

THE TEACHINGS OF OUR 
LORD AND SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST. 

"He spake as never man spake" (John 7: 46). 
He revealed the Divine personality of God as 
our Heavenly Father; as the Father of all His 
creatures; who numbers the very hairs of our 
heads, and without whose knowledge not even a 
sparrow falls to the ground (Matt. 10:30). 
He taught of the love of God for us, even al- 
though we are sinners; that no one has sinned 
beyond a possible forgiveness; that whosoever 
will may be forgiven and redeemed; "For God 
so loved the world that He gave his only be- 
gotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him 
might not perish but have everlasting life" 
(John 3: 16). 

He abolished death and brought immortality 
to light through His Gospel (2 Tim. 1 : 10). If 
He "abolished death" for me, then I must be 
immortal. 

This "Gospel" was the "good tidings" of for- 
giveness of sin, resurrection from the grave, 
and everlasting life. "For this is the will of 
my Father, that every one that beholdeth the 
Son, and believeth on Him, shall have eternal 
life, and I will raise him up at the last day" 
(John 6:40). 

76 



Am I Immortal ? 

He taught that we should love God with all The 
our heart and mind, and our neighbor as our- Teachings 
self ; that we should love everyone, without re- ^ s av i 0ur 
gard to race, or country, or even belief ; that we Jesus Christ 
should do unto others as we would have them 
do unto us; that we must forgive or we will not 
be forgiven; that we must not judge others, for 
God will be their judge as well as ours; that we 
should have no needless anxiety about tomor- 
row; and that we should practice self-denial for 
the good of others as well as for our own. 

By the Parable of the Prodigal Son, He 
taught of the Father's welcome to a returning 
penitent sinner; by the Parable of the Good 
Samaritan, who is our neighbor; by the Parable 
of the Pharisee and Publican, that no one should 
consider himself righteous before God, or de- 
spise any other human being; by the Parable of 
the Sower, how His truth would be received. 
By the Sermon on the Mount, He taught us how 
we should live in relation to God and man. By 
the Lord's Prayer, He taught us how we should 
pray. 

When our Lord was asked if there would be 
many saved, He said: Enter ye in by the 
narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is 
the way that leadeth to destruction, and many 

77 



Am I Immortal ? 

The be they that enter in thereby. For narrow is the 
Teachings g a ^ e an( j straightened the way, that leadeth unto 

and Saviour ltf e > an ^ ^ ew be they that find it" (Matt. 7: 13). 

Jesus Christ Consider what the Roman world was into 
which these teachings were brought. It was in 
a condition of low moral degradation. Even 
the better classes were recklessly profligate, 
and the most shameful vices were indulged in 
openly. Sensuality and intemperance abounded. 
Even religious rites were shamelessly immoral. 
Women were regarded as slaves, were married 
without their consent, and could be divorced at 
pleasure. They were closely confined to their 
houses and were watched by eunuchs and slaves. 
Infanticide abounded by general consent. Chil- 
dren and old people were often abandoned to die 
of exposure. There were more than sixty mil- 
lions of slaves in the Roman Empire — and white 
slaves, remember— who had no political rights 
and could not legally marry. Prisoners and 
slaves, men and even women were killed by 
wild beasts in the amphitheaters for amusement, 
and gladiators fought to death by hundreds, 
"to make a Roman holiday." 

Just think of such teachings coming into such 
a world ! The world of today shows the trans- 
forming power of nineteen centuries of Chris- 

78 



Am I Immortal ? 

tian teachings and of Christian living. There is The 
wickedness and degradation, intemperance and Teachings 
immorality, atheism and anarchism in the world aaB ^^?' 
still, but we of today have little conception of Jesus Christ 
the world as it was when Christ came into it, 
and of the astonishing change which His Gospel 
has wrought. 

Christ before His crucifixion foretold the de- 
struction of Jerusalem, and that the temple so 
great and massive would be razed to its founda- 
tions, and that it would be a time of awful suf- 
fering for the Jews, so terrible that He wept 
over it. The record of this prophecy was re- 
corded by Matthew, Mark and John, two of 
whom were dead before it was fulfilled. Our 
Lord also foretold that the Jews would be scat- 
tered throughout the world and would cease to 
be a nation "until the time of the Gentiles be 
fulfilled. ,, This "time of the Gentiles" we are 
living in now. 



79 



Am I Immortal ? 

THE MIRACLES OF OUR 
LORD AND SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST. 

Miracles did not constitute Christianity. The 
resurrection of Christ from the dead consti- 
tuted it. But the various miracles of His life 
attested the power of the Son of God over His 
creation. The Jews condemned Him because 
he performed miracles of healing on the Sab- 
bath day. They were compelled to acknowledge 
His supernatural power, but claimed that His 
miracles were the work of the devil (Matt. 
12:24). 

He showed by His miracles that He had Di- 
vine power over the laws of nature. "All 
things were made by Him, and without Him was 
not anything made that hath been made" (John 
1:3). Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews, was 
compelled to admit that His power was Divine. 
He said: "Rabbi, we know that thou art a 
teacher come from God, for no one can do these 
miracles that thou doest except God be with 
Him" (John 3:2). 

Nathaniel also, "an Israelite indeed in whom 
is no guile," exclaimed: "Rabbi, thou art the 
Son of God, thou art the King of Israel" (John 
1 : 49) . When John the Baptist from a prison 



80 



and Saviour 
Jesus Christ 



Am I Immortal ? 

cell sent a messenger to enquire of Him: "Art The Miracles 
thou He that cometh, or do we look for an- of our Lord 
other?" Our Lord answered: "Go and tell John 
the things which ye hear and see; the blind re- 
ceive their sight, the lepers are cleansed, and 
the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and 
the poor have good tidings preached to them. 
And blessed is he whosoever shall find no occa- 
sion of stumbling in me" (Matt. 11:2). 

His miracles were performed before thousands 
of witnesses. When the Pharisees were told of 
the raising of Lazarus from the grave, after he 
had been dead for four days, they determined to 
kill Christ, because on account of His miracles 
"all men will believe on Him" (John 11 : 48). 

They also decided to put Lazarus to death, 
because so many of the Jews were believing in 
Jesus after seeing Lazarus (John 12:11). A 
multitude was with Christ when He raised 
Lazarus from the dead (John 12: 17). 

When He changed water into wine (John 
2-9) ; when he restored missing parts to the 
bodies of those who were maimed (Matt. 
15:31); and when He fed five thousand men, 
besides women and children with five barley 
loaves and two fishes (John 6: 9) I He showed 
His creative power. 

81 



Jesus Christ 



Am I Immortal ? 

The Miracles It is true, as materialists claim, that miracles 
of our Lord are impossible — except to God. All laws of 

an *vio a r crea y on an( j f existence are His. By these 
miracles of Divine power Christ showed that 
He was maker and ruler over all things, and 
that He was indeed the Son of God. "Many 
other miracles therefore did Jesus in the pres- 
ence of the disciples, which are not written in 
this book: but these are written, that ye may 
believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God ; 
and that believing ye may have life (everlast- 
ing) in His name" (John 20: 30). 

Thomas Carlyle — But is not a real miracle simply a 
violation of the Laws of Nature ? ask several. Whom 
I answer by this new question: what are the Laws 
of Nature? To me perhaps the raising of one from 
the dead were no violation of these Laws, but a con- 
firmation; were some deeper law, now first penetrated 
into, and by Spiritual Force ; even as the others have 
all been brought to bear upon us with its Material 
Force. 



82 



i 



Am I Immortal ? 

AN EVENING PRAYER. 

"And at even, when the sun did set, they 
brought unto Him all that were sick, and them 
that were possessed with demons. And all the 
city was gathered together at the door. And He 
healed many that were sick of divers diseases, 
and cast out many demons" (Mark 1 : 33). 



At even, ere the sun was set, 

The sick, O Lord, around thee lay ; 

O in what divers pains they met ! 
O with what joy they went away. 

Once more 'tis eventide, and we 

Oppressed with various ills, draw near; 

What if thy form we cannot see? 

We know and feel that thou art here. 

O Saviour, Christ, our woes dispel ; 

For some are sick and some are sad, 
And some have never loved thee well, 

And some have lost the love they had. 

And some have found the world in vain, 
Yet from the world they break not free; 

And some have friends who give them pain, 
Yet have not sought a friend in Thee. 

And none, O Lord, have perfect rest, 
For none are wholly free from sin ; 

And they who fain would love Thee best 
Are conscious most of wrong within. 



83 



Am I Immortal ? 

An Evening O Saviour Christ, Thou too art Man ; 

Prayer Thou hast been troubled, tempted, tried ; 

Thy kind but searching glance can scan 
The very wounds which shame would hide. 

Thy touch has still its ancient power ; 

No words from Thee can fruitless fall; 
Hear, in this solemn evening hour, 

And in Thy mercy heal us all. 

The Church Hymnal—ifev. Henry Twell, 



84 



Am I Immortal ? 

THE CRUCIFIXION. 

We may not know, we cannot tell what grief He had 

to bear: 
But we believe 'twas for our sins He hung and suffered 

there. 

The sinless One paid the penalty for sin. 
He died. He offered Himself as a sacrifice for 
sin. "There was no other good enough to pay 
the price of sin." 

"Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away 
the sin of the world" (John 1 : 29). 

"Christ died for our sins according to the 
Scriptures" (1 Cor. 15:3). 

"Who His own self bore our sins in His 
body upon the tree" (1 Pet. 2: 24). 

"God sent His own Son in the likeness of 
sinful flesh, and for sin condemned sin in the 
flesh" (Rom. 8:3). 

"Who through the eternal Spirit offered Him- 
self without blemish unto God" (Heb. Qi 14). 

"All we like sheep have gone astray; we have 
turned everyone unto his own way, and the Lord 
hath laid upon Him the iniquity of us all" 
(Is. 53:6). 

"He emptied Himself, taking the form of a 
bondservant, being made in the likeness of men; 
and being found in fashion as a man He hum- 



85 



Am I Immortal ? 

The bled Himself, becoming obedient unto death, 
Crucifixion yea, even the death of the cross" (Phil 2:8). 

"Christ also, being once offered to bear the 
sins of many, shall appear a second time, apart 
from sin, to them that wait for Him, unto sal- 
vation" (Heb. 9:28). 

His death was wholly voluntary. When the 
officers from the chief priests and Pharisees 
came with the soldiers to arrest Him^ He al- 
lowed His power to go forth a little and "they 
went backward and fell to the ground" (John 
18:6). This the testimony of an eye witness. 

When Peter drew a sword to defend Him and 
cut off the ear of Malchus, He told Peter to put 
up his sword, and touching the bleeding orifice 
restored the ear (Luke 22: 50). Then He asked 
them to let the disciples go and to arrest Him 
(John 18:8). 

At His trial the chief priests failed to con- 
vict Him of blasphemy according to the Jewish 
Law, until He voluntarily testified before them 
that He was the Son of God (Mark 14: 61). 

Before Pilate He said nothing that would 
lead to His release, although Pilate on account 
of his wife's morning dream, wished to release 
Him (Matt. 27: 19). As Isaiah had prophesied 
of Him so long before: "As a lamb that is led 

86 



Am I Immortal ? 

to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her The 
shearers is dumb, so He opened not His mouth" Crucifixion 
(Is. 53:7). 

Speaking of Himself as the Good Shepherd 
who layeth down his life for the sheep, He had 
said: "Therefore doth the Father love me be- 
cause I lay down my life that I may take it 
again. No one taketh it from me, but I lay it 
down of myself. I have power to lay it down, 
and I have power to take it again. This com- 
mandment have I received from my Father" 
(John 10:17). 

And then, after mock trials in the hands of 
His enemies, He was scourged — an awful pun- 
ishment in itself — was struck in the face by 
brutal soldiers ; spit upon ; crowned with thorns ; 
and crucified. Beyond the torturing agonies of 
this lingering death, it is not possible for mor- 
tals to enter. He bore the sins of the world. 
Amid all its horror, He thought only of others. 

Of those who crucified Him, He said: "Father 
forgive them for they know not what they do." 
Recalling the Twenty-second Psalm, prophetic 
of His crucifixion, He repeated: "My God, My 
God, why hast Thou forsaken me." To the 
penitent thief crucified with Him, He said: 
"Thou shalt be with me in Paradise." To Mary, 

87 



Am I Immortal ? 

The His mother, committing her to the care of His 
Crucifixion beloved disciple John, He said: "Woman, be- 
hold thy son," and to John, "Behold thy 
Mother/' At the end: "It is finished," and 
"Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit." 
It is no wonder that "there was darkness over 
all the land" for three hours, and that even the 
Roman centurion, hardened to piteous scenes of 
crucifixion, should exclaim: "Truly this man 
was the Son of God" (Mark 15:39). 

When Thou hadst overcome the sharpness of death, 
Thou didst open the Kingdom of Heaven to all believers. 



88 



Am I Immortal ? 

THE RESURRECTION OF OUR 
LORD AND SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST 

The resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ is 
as well authenticated as any event in history. 
All history is now dated B. C. or A. D. Chris- 
tianity was founded upon the resurrection of 
Christ by the testimony of those living at the 
time, who were with Him for years prior to His 
crucifixion and who were with Him after His 
resurrection. 

His followers were so crushed by His death 
that they did not expect Him to rise from the 
dead, although He had often told them that He 
would. Among them was one disciple, Thomas, 
who would not believe when others, who had 
seen Christ after He had risen from the dead, 
told him of it; saying he would not believe it 
unless he could see the nail-prints of crucifixion 
in His hands and put his fingers in the hole 
which the soldier's spear made in His side. This 
he afterward had an opportunity of doing, and 
exclaimed: "My Lord and my God" (John 
20:24). 

Christ had said at the tomb of Lazarus: "I 
am the resurrection and the life: he that be- 
lieveth on me shall never die" (John 11 : 25). 



89 



Am I Immortal ? 

The In the Apocalypse He said: "Fear not; I am 

Resurrection t ne first and the last, and the living one; and I 

o our or wag j ea j an( j k eno icl I am alive for evermore, 
and Saviour 
Jesus Christ an( ^ ' have the keys of death and of Hades (the 

grave)" (Rev. 1:18). 



90 



i 



Am I Immortal ? 

THE RESURRECTION OF OUR 
LORD AND SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST. 

MATTHEW'S ACCOUNT. 

"Now late on the Sabbath day, as it began to 
dawn toward the first day of the week, came 
Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see 
the sepulchre. And behold there was a great 
earthquake, for an angel of the Lord descended 
from heaven, and came and rolled away the 
stone and sat upon it. His appearance was as 
lightning and his raiment white as snow: and 
for fear of him the watchers did quake and be- 
came as dead men. And the angel answered and 
said unto the women, Fear not ye; for I know 
that ye seek Jesus who hath been crucified. He 
is not here, for He is risen even as He said: 
come see the place where the Lord lay. And go 
quickly and tell His disciples He is risen from 
the dead; and lo, He goeth before you into 
Galilee; there shall ye see Him; lo, I have told 
you. And they departed quickly from the tomb 
with fear and great joy, and ran to bring His 
disciples word. And behold, Jesus met them, 
saying, All hail. And they came and took hold 
of His feet and worshipped Him. Then saith 
Jesus unto them, Fear not; go tell my brethren 



91 



Am I Immortal ? 

The that they depart into Galilee, and there shall 
Resurrection they see me. 

o our r "Now while they were going, behold some of 

and Saviour , , ,, 

Tesus Christ * ne g uar ^ came into the city, and told unto the 

chief priests all the things that were come to pass. 
And when they were assembled with the elders 
and had taken counsel, they gave much money to 
the soldiers, saying, Say ye, His disciples came 
by night and stole Him away while we slept. 
And if this come to the Governor's ears, we will 
persuade him and rid you of care. So they 
took the money and did as they were taught; 
and this saying was spread abroad among the 
Jews and continueth until this day. But the 
eleven disciples went into Galilee unto the moun- 
tain where Jesus had appointed them. And when 
they saw Him, they worshipped Him; but some 
doubted. 

"And Jesus came to them and spake unto 
them, saying, All authority hath been given unto 
me in heaven and on earth. Go ye therefore 
and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing 
them in the name of the Father and of the Son, 
and of the Holy Spirit ; teaching them to observe 
all things whatsoever I commanded you; and lo, 
I am with you always, even unto the end of the 
world" (Matt. 28). 

.92 



Am I Immortal ? 

THE RESURRECTION OF OUR 
LORD AND SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST. 

MARK'S ACCOUNT. 

"And when the Sabbath was past, Mary Mag- 
dalene and Mary the mother of James and 
Salome, bought spices that they might come and 
anoint Him. And very early on the first day 
of the week they came to the tomb when the sun 
was risen. And they were saying among them- 
selves, Who shall roll away the stone from the 
door of the tomb? And looking up they see 
that the stone is rolled back; for it was exceed- 
ing great. And entering into the tomb they saw 
a young man sitting on the right side, arrayed 
in a white robe; and they were amazed. And 
he saith unto them, Be not amazed; ye seek 
Jesus the Nazarene, who hath been crucified: 
He is risen; He is not here; behold the place 
where they laid Him. But go, tell His disciples, 
and Peter, He goeth before you into Galilee; 
there shall ye see Him as He said unto you. 
And they went out and fled from the tomb; for 
trembling and astonishment had come upon 
them ; and they said nothing to anyone ; for they 
were afraid. 

"Now when He was risen early on the first 
day of the week, He appeared first unto Mary 
93 



Am I Immortal ? 

The Magdalene, from whom He had cast out seven 

Resurrection demons. She went and told them that had been 

, « . with Him. as they mourned and wept. And they 
and Saviour J r J 

Jesus Christ wnen they heard that He was alive and had 

been seen of her, disbelieved. And after these 
things He was manifested in another form unto 
two of them, as they walked, on their way into 
the country. And they went away and told it 
unto the rest; neither believed they them. And 
afterward He was manifested unto the eleven 
themselves, as they sat at meat; and He up- 
braided them with their unbelief and hardness 
of heart because they believed not them that had 
seen Him after He was risen. And He said unto 
them, Go ye unto all the world and preach the 
good tidings (of the resurrection) to the whole 
creation. He that believeth and is baptized 
shall be saved; but he that disbelieveth shall 
be condemned. And these signs shall accompany 
them that believe; in my name shall they cast 
out demons ; they shall speak with new tongues ; 
they shall take up serpents, and if they drink 
any deadly thing, it shall in no wise hurt them; 
they shall lay their hands on the sick, and they 
shall recover. So then, the Lord Jesus, after 
He had spoken unto them, was received up into 
heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God. 

94 



Am I Immortal ? 

And they went forth and preached everywhere, The 

the Lord working with them, and confirming the Resurrection 

word by the signs that followed. Amen." ° ° TS * / 
,-- . * e and Saviour 

( Markl6 ) Jesus Christ 



95 



Am I Immortal ? 

THE RESURRECTION OF OUR 
LORD AND SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST. 
LUKE'S ACCOUNT. 
"But on the first day of the week at early 
dawn they came unto the tomb, bringing the 
spices which they had prepared. And they 
found the stone rolled away from the tomb. And 
they entered in and found not the body of the 
Lord Jesus. And it came to pass while they 
were perplexed thereabout, behold two men 
stood by them in dazzling apparel, and as they 
were affrighted and bowed down their faces to 
the earth, they said unto them, Why seek ye the 
living among the dead? He is not here, but is 
risen; remember how He spake unto you when 
He was yet in Galilee, saying, that the Son of 
man must be delivered up into the hands of sin- 
ful men and be crucified, and the third day 
rise again. And they remembered His words, 
and returned from the tomb, and told all these 
things to the eleven, and to all the rest. Now 
they were Mary Magdalene and Joanna, and 
Mary the mother of James : and the other women 
with them told these things unto the apostles. 
And these words appeared in their sight as idle 
talk; and they disbelieved them. But Peter 
arose and ran unto the tomb; and stooping and 

96 



Am I Immortal f 

looking in he seeth the linen cloths by them- The 

selves; and he departed to his home, wondering Resurrection 

,,.,., , of our Lord 

at that which was come to pass. _ _ . 

r and Saviour 

"And behold, two of them were going that j esus Christ 

very day to a village named Emmaus, which was 
threescore furlongs from Jerusalem. And they 
communed with each other of all these things 
which had happened. And it came to pass 
while they communed and questioned together 
that Jesus Himself drew near and went with 
them; but their eyes were holden that they 
should not know Him. And He said unto them, 
What communications are these that ye have 
one with another as ye walk? And they stood 
still, looking sad. And one of them, named 
Cleopas, answering, said unto Him, Dost thou 
alone sojourn in Jerusalem and not know the 
things which are come to pass there in these 
days? And He said unto them, What things? 
And they said unto Him, The things concerning 
Jesus the Nazarene, who was a prophet mighty 
in deed and word before God and all people; 
and how the chief priests and our rulers deliv- 
ered Him up to be condemned to death and 
crucified Him. But we hoped that it was He 
who should redeem Israel. Yea, and besides 
all this, it is now the third day since these 

97 



Am I Immortal ? 

The things came to pass. Moreover, certain women 

Resurrection f our company amazed us, having been early 

. at the tomb ; and when they found not His body, 

Tesus Christ *key came sa yi n g^ tna t they had also seen a 
vision of angels who said that He was alive. 
And certain of them that were with us went to 
the tomb, and found it even so as the women 
had said; but Him they saw not. And He said 
unto them, O foolish men and slow of heart to 
believe in all the prophets have spoken! Be- 
hooved it not the Christ to suffer these things, 
and to enter into His glory? And beginning 
from Moses, and from all the prophets, He in- 
terpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things 
concerning Himself. And they drew nigh unto 
the village whither they were going; and He 
made as though He would go further. And 
they constrained Him, saying, Abide with us 
for it is toward evening and the day is now far 
spent. And He went in to abide with them. And 
it came to pass when He had sat down with 
them to meat, He took the bread and blessed; 
and breaking, He gave it to them. And their 
eyes were opened; and they knew Him; and He 
vanished out of their sight. And they said one 
to another, Was not our heart burning within 
us while He spake to us in the way, and while 

98 



Am I Immortal ? 

He opened to us the Scriptures? And they The 
rose up that very hour, and returned to Jeru- Resurrection 
salem, and found the eleven gathered together Savour 

and them that were with them, saying, The Lord j esus Christ 
is risen indeed and hath appeared to Simon. 
And they rehearsed the things that happened in 
the way, and how He was known of them in 
the breaking of the bread. And as they spake 
these things, He Himself stood in the midst of 
them, and said unto them, Peace be unto you. 
But they were terrified and affrighted, and sup- 
posed that they beheld a spirit. And He said 
unto them, Why are ye troubled, and wherefore 
do questionings arise in your heart? See my 
hands and my feet, that it is I myself; handle 
me and see ; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones 
as ye behold me having. And when He had said 
this, He showed them His hands and His feet. 
And while they still disbelieved for joy, and 
wondered, He said unto them, Have ye here 
anything to eat? And they gave Him a piece 
of a broiled fish and a honeycomb. And He 
took it and ate before them. And He said unto 
them, These are my words which I spake unto 
you, while I was yet with you, that all things 
must needs be fulfilled, which are written in the 
law of Moses, and the Prophets, and the Psalms 

99 



Am I Immortal ? 

The concerning me. Then opened He their mind 

Resurrection that they might understand the Scriptures; and 

_ „ . He said unto them, Thus it is written, that the 
and Saviour 7 

Jesus Christ Christ should suffer and rise again from the 

dead the third day, and that repentance and re- 
mission of sins should be preached in His name 
unto all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem. 
Ye are witnesses of these things, and behold, I 
send forth the promise of my Father upon you; 
but tarry ye in the city, until ye be clothed with 
power from on high. 

"And He led them out until they were over 
against Bethany; and He lifted up His hands 
and blessed them. And it came to pass while He 
blessed them, He parted from them, and was 
carried up into heaven. And they worshipped 
Him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy; 
and were continually in the temple blessing 
God" (Luke 24). 



100 



Am I Immortal ? 

THE RESURRECTION OF OUR 

LORD AND SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST. 

JOHN'S ACCOUNT. 

"Now on the first day of the week cometh 
Mary Magdalene early, while it was yet dark, 
to the tomb, and seeth the stone taken away 
from the tomb. She runneth, therefore, and 
cometh to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple 
whom Jesus loved, and saith unto them, They 
have taken away the Lord out of the tomb, and 
we know not where they have laid Him. Peter 
therefore went forth, and the other disciple, and 
they went toward the tomb. And they ran both 
together; and the other disciple outran Peter, 
and came first to the tomb; and stooping and 
looking in, he seeth the linen cloths lying; yet 
entered he not in. Simon Peter therefore also 
cometh, following him and entered into the 
tomb; and he beholdeth the linen cloths lying, 
and the napkin that was upon His head, not 
lying with the linen cloths, but rolled up in a 
place by itself. Then entered in the other dis- 
ciple also, who came first to the tomb, and he 
saw and believed. For as yet they knew not 
the Scripture, that He must rise again from the 
dead. So the disciples went away unto their 
own home. 

"But Mary was standing without at the tomb 
101 



Am I Immortal ? 

The weeping; so as she wept, she stooped and 
Resurrection looked into the tomb; and she beholdeth two 
of our Lord an g e l s i n white, sitting, one at the head and one 
T Ch ' t a ^ * ne ^ ee ^ where the body of Jesus had lain. 
And they say unto her, Woman, why weepest 
thou? She saith unto them, Because they have 
taken away my Lord and I know not where they 
have laid Him. When she had thus said, she 
turned herself back and beholdeth Jesus stand- 
ing, and knew not that it was Jesus. Jesus 
saith unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? 
Whom seekest thou? She, supposing Him to be 
the gardener, saith unto Him, Sir if thou hast 
borne Him hence, tell me where thou hast laid 
Him, and I will take Him away. Jesus saith 
unto her, Mary. She turned herself, and saith 
unto Him in Hebrew, Rabboni ; which is to say, 
Master. Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not, 
for I am not yet ascended unto the Father; but 
go unto my brethren, and say to them I ascend 
unto my Father and your Father, and my God 
and your God. Mary Magdalene cometh and 
telleth the disciples, I have seen the Lord; and 
that He had said these things unto her. 

"When, therefore, it was evening on that day, 
the first day of the week, and when the doors 
were shut where the disciples were, for fear of 

the Jews, Jesus came and stood in the midst, and 
102 



Am I Immortal ? 

saith unto them, Peace be unto you. And when The 

He had said this He showed them His hands Resurrection 

and His side. The disciples therefore were glad and U Saviour 

when they saw the Lord. Jesus therefore, said to j esus Christ 

them, again, Peace be unto you; as the Father 

hath sent me, even so I send you. And when 

He had said this, He breathed on them, and 

saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Spirit; 

whose soever sins ye forgive, they are forgiven 

unto them; whose soever sins ye retain, they 

are retained. 

"But Thomas, one of the twelve, called 
Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came. 
The other disciples therefore said unto him, 
We have seen the Lord. But he said unto 
them, Except I shall see in His hands the print 
of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I 
will not believe. And after eight days again 
His disciples were within and Thomas with 
them. Jesus cometh, the doors being shut, and 
stood in the midst, and said, Peace be unto you. 
Then said He to Thomas, reach hither thy finger 
and see my hands; and reach hither thy hand 
and put it into my side ; and be not faithless but 
believing. Thomas answered and saith unto 
Him, My Lord and my God. Jesus saith unto 
him, Because thou hast seen me, thou hast be- 

103 



Am I Immortal ? 

The lieved: Blessed are they that have not seen and 
Resurrection ve t have believed. Many other signs therefore 
. did Jesus in the presence of the disciples, which 
Jesus Christ are not wr ^ten in this book, but these are writ- 
ten, that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, 
the Son of God ; and that believing, ye may have 
life in His name. 

"After these things, Jesus manifested Himself 
again to His disciples at the Sea of Tiberius; 
and He manifested Himself on this wise. There 
were together Simon Peter and Thomas called 
Didymus, and Nathaniel of Cana in Galilee, and 
the sons of Zebedee, and two other of His dis- 
ciples. Simon Peter saith unto them, I go a 
fishing. They say unto him, We also come with 
thee. They went forth and entered into the 
boat ; and that night they took nothing. But 
when day was now breaking, Jesus stood on the 
beach; yet the disciples knew not that it was 
Jesus. Jesus therefore said unto them, Chil- 
dren, have ye aught to eat? They answered 
Him, No. And He said unto them, Cast the 
net on the right side of the boat, and ye shall 
find. They cast, therefore, and now they were 
not able to draw it for the multitude of fishes. 
That disciple, therefore, whom Jesus loveth, 
saith to Peter, It is the Lord. So when Simon 

104 



Am I Immortal f 

Peter heard that it was the Lord, he girt his The 

coat about him (for he was naked) and cast him- Resurrection 

self into the sea. But the other disciples came _ . 

in the little boat (for they were not far from the j esus Christ 

land, but about two hundred cubits off) dragging 

the net full of fishes. So when they got out 

upon the land, they see a fire of coals there, and 

fish laid thereon, and bread. Jesus saith unto 

them, Bring of the fish which ye have now 

taken. Simon Peter therefore went up and drew 

the net to land, full of great fishes, an hundred 

and fifty and three; and for all there were so 

many, the net was not rent. Jesus saith unto 

them, Come and break your fast. And none of 

the disciples durst enquire of Him, Who art 

Thou? knowing that it was the Lord. Jesus 

cometh and taketh the bread and giveth them, 

and the fish likewise. This is now the third 

time that Jesus was manifested to the disciples, 

after He was risen from the dead. 

"So when they had broken their fast, Jesus 
saith to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest 
thou me more than these? He saith unto Him, 
Yea, Lord, Thou knowest that I love Thee. He 
saith unto him, Feed my lambs. He saith unto 
him, a second time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest 
thou me ? He saith unto Him, Yea, Lord ; Thou 

105 



Am I Immortal ? 

The knowest that I love Thee. He saith unto him, 
Resurrection Yeed my sheep. He saith unto him the third 

, ™ . time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? Peter 

and Saviour 

Jesus Christ was g r i eve ^ because He said unto him the third 
time, Lovest thou me? And he said unto Him, 
Lord, Thou knowest all things; Thou knowest 
that I love Thee. Jesus said unto him, Feed my 
sheep. Verily, verily, I say unto thee, When 
thou wast young, thou girdest thyself, and 
walked whither thou wouldest; but when thou 
shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, 
and another shall gird thee, and carry thee 
whither thou wouldst not. Now this He spake, 
signifying by what manner of death he should 
glorify God. And when He had spoken this, 
He saith unto him, Follow me. Peter turning 
about, seeth the disciple whom Jesus loved, fol- 
lowing ; who also leaned back on His breast at 
the supper, and said, Lord, and what shall this 
man do ? Jesus saith unto him, If I will that he 
tarry until I come, what is that to thee? follow 
thou me. This saying therefore went forth 
among the brethren, that that disciple should not 
die; yet Jesus said not unto him that he should 
not die; but, if I will that He tarry till I come, 
what is that to thee? 

"This is the disciple that beareth witness of 

these things, and wrote these things; and we 
106 



Am I Immortal ? 

know that his witness is true. And there are The 

also many other things which Jesus did, the Resurrection 

which if they should be written every one, I sup- _ _ . 

J J ' r and Saviour 

pose that even the world itself would not contain y esus Christ 

the books that should be written" (John 20, 21). 



107 



Am I Immortal ? 

THE RESURRECTION OF OUR 

LORD AND SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST. 

PAUL'S ACCOUNT. 

"Now I make known unto you, brethren, the 
good tidings which I preached unto you, which 
also ye received, wherein also ye stand, by which 
also ye are saved, if ye hold fast the word, which 
I preached unto you, except ye believed in vain. 
For I delivered unto you first of all that which 
also I received, that Christ died for our sins 
according to the Scriptures, and that He was 
buried; and that He hath been raised on the 
third day according to the Scriptures; and that 
He appeared to Cephas; then to the twelve; then 
He appeared to about five hundred brethren at 
once, of whom the greater part remain until now, 
but some are fallen asleep; then He appeared to 
James; then to all the apostles; and last of all, 
as to the child untimely born, He appeared to 
me also. For I am the least of the apostles, 
that am not meet to be called an apostle, because 
I persecuted the church of God. But by the 
grace of God I am what I am; and His grace 
which was bestowed upon me was not found 
vain; but I labored more abundantly than they 
all; yet not I, but the grace of God which was 

108 



Am I Immortal ? 

with me. Whether then it be I or they, so we The 

preach and so ye believed" (1 Cor. 15: 1-11). Resurrection 

In these separate accounts of the resurrection , „ . 

and Saviour 
of the Lord Jesus Christ, by independent wit- j esus Christ 

nesses, gathered together afterward, there is the 
variation in unimportant details which is com- 
mon to all human testimony, and which abun- 
dantly confirms its reliability. 



109 



Am I Immortal ? 
SIN. 

Sin is one of the great facts of human 
existence. The laws and literature of all ages 
and of all countries recognize its universality. 
Our consciences testify that we have violated the 
laws of our being, and that there is a judgment 
to come because of this. No one, in thought, 
could appear before an omniscient God without 
confessing, I am a sinner. Ordinary rectitude 
of life does not do away with that conscious- 
ness. There was unlimited need of an infinite 
Redeemer. 

Counterfeit Christianity much in vogue nowa- 
days, seeks to do away with sin and the need of 
a Saviour, but it can never satisfy the human 
soul. Lady Macbeth could find no way in which 
to wash clean her red, right hand. 

The Bible is a record of sin and of its con- 
sequences, and of the need of Divine salvation 
from it. "And if the righteous is scarcely saved, 
where shall the ungodly and sinner appear' ' 
(1 Pet. 4: 18). 

Nearly a thousand years before Christ came 
into the world, the Prophet Isaiah proclaimed: 
"All we like sheep have gone astray; we have 
turned every one to his own way, and the Lord 



110 



Am I Immortal ? 

hath laid upon Him the iniquity of us all" (Is. Sin 
53:6). 

Paul said: "But I see another law in my 
members warring against the law of my mind 
and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin 
which is in my members. wretched man that 
I am! Who shall deliver me from this body of 
death? I thank God, through Jesus Christ our 
Lord" (Rom. 7:23). 

Christ said: "Except a man be born from 
above he cannot see the kingdom of God" — the 
kingdom of immortal life (John S\S). This 
new birth is a sense of redemption from the 
guilt and penalty of sin. This redemption is 
not because of any merit of our own, for we are 
all sinners and under penalty of eternal death, 
but through the merit of the sinless Son of God 
who purchased it for us by His sacrifice on 
Calvary, and who bestows it upon us. 

This sense of redemption is a fundamental 
conviction of our inner consciousness. It does 
not come through reason alone; it is not opposed 
to reason ; it is higher than reason alone, being a 
matter of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And 
as the Bible states: "it is spiritually discerned" 
(1 Cor. 2: 14). 



Ill 



Am I Immortal ? 
DEATH THE PUNISHMENT FOR SIN. 

"Shall mortal man be more just than God" 
(Job 4: 17)? 

So far we have followed what the Bible 
teaches concerning death, as having passed upon 
Adam and Eve because of their sin. Everlasting 
punishment as to duration is not the penalty for 
sin, or Christ would have had to suffer forever; 
but He died. That should make it plain to 
every one what eternal punishment means. God 
who gives life, can take it away. 

There is very little in the Bible to warrant a 
belief in man's natural immortality, or in the 
immortality of evil. Its plain teaching is that 
the Son of God became man in order to over- 
come sin, and to deliver man from eternal death, 
the final doom of the impenitent sinner. 

"Christ died for our sins according to the 
Scriptures" (1 Cor. 15:3). 

"Who His own self bare our sins in His body 
on the tree" (1 Pet. 2:24). 

"But God commendeth His own love toward 
us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died 
for us" (Rom. 5:8). 

"For the wages of sin is death, but the free 
gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our 
Lord" (Rom. 6:23). 

112 



Am I Immortal ? 

"I said unto you that ye shall die in your sins; Death the 
for except ye believe that / am He, ye shall die Punishment 
in your sins (John 8: 24). 

"For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ 
Jesus made me free from the law of sin and 
death" (Rom. 8:2). 

"And sin when it is committed, bringeth forth 
death" (James 1: 15). 

"Therefore, as through one man sin entered 
into the world, and death through sin, and so 
death passed upon all men, for that all have 
sinned" (Rom. 5: 12). 

"For if by the trespass of the one, death 
reigned through the one, much more shall they 
that receive the abundance of grace and of the 
gift of righteousness reign in life through the 
one, even Jesus Christ" (Rom. 5: 17). 

"That as sin reigned unto death, even so might 
grace reign through righteousness unto eternal 
life through Jesus Christ our Lord" (Rom. 
5:21). 

"My brethren, if any man among you err from 
the truth and one convert him; let him know 
that he that converteth a sinner from the error 
of his way shall save a soul from death, and 
shall cover a multitude of sins" (James 5: 19). 

How plain the teachings of the Bible are, if 

113 



Am I Immortal ? 

Death the we accept them just as they are written. Some 
Punishment one invented the phrase, "The death that never 
dieth," in support of eternal punishment in 
duration as the penalty for sin, but there is no 
such expression in the Scriptures. In the 
Epistle of Jude, Sodom and Gomorrah are 
spoken of as, "suffering the punishment of eter- 
nal fire," which evidently refers to its irrevoc- 
able nature and not to its duration. 

When John the Baptist was preaching of the 
coming of Christ, he said : "Whose fan is in His 
hand and He will thoroughly cleanse His thresh- 
ing floor; and He will gather His wheat into 
the garner, but the chaff He will burn up with 
unquenchable fire" (Matt. 3: 12). How quickly 
the chaff would be destroyed! In Christ's par- 
able of "The tares of the field," He explained to 
His disciples; "as therefore the tares are gath- 
ered up and burned with fire, so shall it be at 
the end of the world" (Matt. 13:40). 

"And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the 
wilderness, even so must the Son of man be 
lifted up, that whosoever believeth in Him may 
have eternal life" (John 3: 14). 

In this prediction of His crucifixion, Christ 
compared it to the incident in the wilderness 
where the Israelites were dying in large num- 

114 



Am I Immortal ? 

bers from the bites of poisonous serpents, and Death the 
where Moses was commanded to put a brazen Punishment 
serpent on a pole and tell them that whosoever 
looked upon it in faith, after being bitten, would 
not die but be healed. How else could any one 
explain it? 

When God was preparing to release the 
Israelites from bondage in Egypt, He told them 
through Moses to sacrifice a lamb and sprinkle 
the blood upon the doorposts, so that the angel 
of death would pass over them when he came to 
smite the first born of the Egyptians. Ever 
afterward the Jews celebrated the Feast of the 
Passover in commemoration of this. When on 
the night of His betrayal, Christ celebrated this 
Passover with His disciples, He used the em- 
blems of this Feast in establishing a memorial 
of His coming death for men. Taking the un- 
leavened bread: "He blessed and brake it and 
gave it to His disciples, saying, Take, eat; this 
is my body. And he took the cup and gave 
thanks, saying, Drink ye all of it; for this is 
my blood of the covenant which is poured out 
for many unto remission of sins" (Matt. 26: 26, 
27). "For as often as ye eat this bread and 
drink this cup ye proclaim the Lord's death until 
He come 9 ' (1 Cor. 11:26). "For our passover 

115 



Punishment 
for Sin 



Am I Immortal ? 

Death the also hath been sacrificed, even Christ" (1 Cor. 
5:7). 

This teaching is, that as the Jews escaped 
death in Egypt by the sacrifice of a lamb, so we 
shall escape death as the punishment for sin by 
the sacrifice of "the lamb of God' 3 for our re- 
demption. How else could any one explain it? 
John the Baptist testified concerning Him: 
"Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away 
the sin of the world" (John 1 : 29). 

Death as the punishment for sin, was taught 
by the early Fathers of the Christian Church, 
such as Barnabas, Clement, Hermas, Ignatius, 
Justin Martyr, Theophilus, Irenaes, and many 
others. The doctrine of everlasting punishment 
is not to be found in the Apostles' Creed, nor in 
the Nicene Creed, the two great universal creeds 
of the Christian Church. It is not to be found 
in the thirty-nine articles of the Episcopal 
Church, in the creed of the Reformed Church 
of France, or in the short statement of the 
Reformed Faith adopted in 1904 by the Pres- 
byterian Church in this country. 

The Bible everywhere is full of the love of 
God as our Heavenly Father, who is "not willing 
that any should perish, but that all should be 
brought to repentance' ' (2 Pet. 3:9). In 

116 



for Sin 



Am I Immortal ? 

Ezekiel 18:27, He says: "When the wicked Death the 

man turneth from his wickedness that he hath Punishment 

committed, and doeth that which is lawful and 

right, he shall save his soul alive. Turn ye, 

turn ye, for why will ye die, O house of Israel/' 

In Proverbs 8:36, we are told: "He that sin- 

neth against me, wrongeth his own soul. Ail 

they that hate me love death" Christ said: "Be 

not afraid of them that kill the body, but are not 

able to kill the soul: but rather fear Him who 

is able to destroy both soul and body in 

Gehenna" (Matt. 10:28). 

We can understand how an earthly father with 
a hopelessly wicked and utterly incorrigible son, 
might say: "I would rather see him dead;" but 
we could not imagine him saying: "I would 
rather see him in torment forever." And can we 
imagine a loving Heavenly Father saying so 
of a hopelessly sinful creature? But it would 
be far better that he should suffer "the second 
death" than that he should go on sinning and 
suffering forever. And so the Lord Jesus said: 
"For what shall a man be profited, if he shall 
gain the whole world and forfeit his life? For 
the Son of Man shall come in the glory of His 
father with His angels; and then shall He ren- 
der to every man according to his deeds" (Matt. 

16:26). 

117 



Am I Immortal ? 

Death the Rev. Lyman Abbott, D. D. — Fire in the Bible is gener- 
Punishment ally the emblem of destruction, not of torment. The 
for Sin cnan? > the fruitless tree, are not to be tortured, but to be 
destroyed. The hell-fire spoken of in the New Testa- 
ment is the fire of Gehenna, kept burning outside of the 
walls of Jerusalem to destroy the offal of the city. Here 
was the worm that dieth not, and the fire that is not 
quenched; emblems of destruction, not of torment. I 
find nothing in the New Testament to warrant the ter- 
rible opinion that God sustains the life of His 
creatures throughout eternity, only that they may con- 
tinue in sin and misery. That immortality is the gift 
of God through our Lord Jesus Christ, that man is 
mortal and must put on immortality, that only he can 
put it on who becomes through Christ a partaker of the 
Divine nature, and so an inheriter of him who only hath 
immortality; that eternal life is life eternal, and eternal 
death is death eternal, and everlasting destruction is 
destruction without remedy — that is the most natural 
as it is the simplest reading of the New Testament. 



118 



Am I Immortal ? 
ETERNAL LIFE THROUGH CHRIST. 

The Bible teaches that eternal life is the gift 
of God through our Lord and Saviour Jesus 
Christ. It is not inherent in ourselves. The 
Lord Jesus said unto the Jews, "Ye will not 
come unto me that ye might have life" (John 
5:40). 

Mortal life they had already, but immortal 
life could only be obtained through Him. "For 
God so loved the world that He gave His only 
begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him 
should not perish, but have everlasting life. For 
God sent not His Son into the world to condemn 
the world, but that the world through Him might 
be saved" (John 3: 16). 

"He that believeth on the Son hath eternal 
life; but he that obeyeth not the Son shall not 
see life but the wrath of God abideth on Him" 
(John 3:36). 

"For as the Father raiseth the dead, and 
giveth them life, even so the Son also giveth life 
to whom He will" (John 5: 21). 

"Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that heareth 
my word and believeth Him that sent me, hath 
eternal life, and cometh not into judgment, but 
hath passed out of death into life" (John 5 : 24). 

119 



Christ 



Am I Immortal ? 

Eternal Life "He that believeth not God, hath made Him a 
Through \[ aT . because he hath not believed in the witness 
which God hath borne concerning His Son. And 
the witness is this, he that hath the Son hath the 
life, and he that hath not the Son hath not the 
life" (John 5: 11). 

"For this is the will of my Father, that every- 
one that beholdeth the Son and believeth on 
Him, shall have eternal life, and / will raise him 
up at the last day" (John 6: 40). 

"Ye search the Scriptures, because in them ye 
think ye have eternal life, and these are they 
which bear witness of me" (John 5: 39)- 

"I am the good Shepherd; the good Shepherd 
layeth down his life for the sheep. My sheep 
hear my voice and I know them and they follow 
me, and I give unto them eternal life, that they 
shall never perish, and no one shall pluck them 
out of my hand" (John 10: 11). 

"To them that by patience in well-doing seek 
for glory and honor and incorruption, eternal 
life" (Rom. 2:7). 

"These things have I written unto you, that 
ye may know ye have eternal life, even unto you 
that believe on the name of the Son of God" 
(1 John 5: 13). 

"Lord, to whom shall we go, thou hast the 
words of eternal life. And we believe and are 
120 



Am I Immortal ? 

sure that thou art the Christ, the Son of the Eternal Life 
living God" (John 6: 68). Through 

"But these are written that ye may believe 
that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and 
that believing ye may have life through His 
name" (John 20:31). 

"And the witness is this, that God gave unto 
us eternal life and this life is in His Son" 
(1 John 5: 11). 

"And having been made perfect, He became 
unto all them that obey Him, the author of eter- 
nal salvation" (Heb. 5:9)* 

"That as sin reigned in death, even so might 
grace reign through righteousness unto eternal 
life through Jesus Christ our Lord" (Rom. 
5:21). 

"Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking 
for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto 
eternal life" (Jude 21). 

"For he that soweth unto his own flesh shall 
of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth 
unto the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap eternal 
life" (Gal. 6:8). 

"Faithful is the saying and worthy of all 
acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the 
world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. How 
be it for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me 

121 



Am I Immortal ? 

Eternal Life as chief (sinner) might Jesus Christ show forth 
Through a ]j jjis long suffering, for an example to them 
that should thereafter believe on Him unto eter- 
nal life' 3 (1 Tim. 1: 15). 

James Russell Lowell — The Saviour alone has given 
to man the hope of eternal life which makes life 
tolerable and robs death of its terrors and the grave of 
its gloom. 



m 



Am I Immortal ? 
ASLEEP IN THE GRAVE. 

The Bible teaches that the dead are asleep 
and shall rest in their graves until the resur- 
rection. In natural sleep we have no conscious 
lapse of time, and awake refreshed and strength- 
ened. Shakespeare speaks of natural sleep as 
"the death of each day's life." Those who sleep 
in the dust, since Adam onward, have no con- 
scious lapse of time. When they awake in the 
resurrection through Christ, it will be in new 
bodies which will "never grow weary." In the 
first deaths of Adam and others recorded in the 
fifth chapter of Genesis, no mention is made of 
any separation between body and spirit. 

"And Aaron shall be gathered unto his people, 
and shall die there" (Numbers 20: 26). 

"And Abraham gave up the ghost, and died in 
a good old age, an old man and full of years, and 
was gathered unto his people" (Gen. 25: 8). 

"And Isaac gave up the ghost, and died and 
was gathered unto his people" (Gen. 35: 29). 

"And when Jacob made an end of charging 
his sons, he gathered up his feet into the bed, 
and yielded up the ghost, and was gathered unto 
his people" (Gen. 49:33). 

"Who can count the dust of Jacob or number 
the fourth part of Israel ? Let me die the death 
123 



Am I Immortal ? 

Asleep in of the righteous and let my last end be like his" 
the Grave (Num. 23: 10). 

"And David slept with his fathers, and was 
buried in the City of David" (1 Kings 2:10). 

"And the days which Jeroboam reigned were 
two and twenty years, and he slept with his 
fathers" (1 Kings 14:20). 

"And Rehoboam slept with his fathers and 
was buried with his fathers in the City of David" 
(1 Kings 14:31). 

"For now should I have lain down and been 
quiet; I should have slept; then had I been at 
rest" (Job 3:13). 

"There the wicked cease from troubling, and 
there the weary are at rest" (Job 3: 17). 

"It shall go down to the bars of Sheol when 
once there is rest in the dust" (Job 17: 16). 

"For in death there is no remembrance of 
Thee" (Psalms 6:5). 

"Consider and answer me, O Lord my God; 
lighten mine eyes ere / sleep the sleep of death" 
(Ps. 13:3). 

"I shall be satisfied when I awake in Thy like- 
ness" (Ps. 17: 15). 

"Thou takest away their breath, they die and 
return to dust" (Ps. 104: 29). 

"His breath goeth forth, he returneth to the 

124 



Am I Immortal ? 

earth ; in that very day his thoughts perish" Asleep in 
(Ps. 146:4). the Grave 

"Thy dead shall live; my dead shall arise. 
Awake and sing, ye that dwell in the dust, for 
thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth 
shall cast forth the dead" (Is. 26: 19). 

"Behold I will open your graves and cause 
you to come up out of your graves, O my people ; 
I will bring you into the land of Israel, and ye 
shall know that I am the Lord when I have 
opened your graves and caused you to come up 
out of your graves, O, my people" (Ezek. 
37:12). 

"And many of them which slept in the dust 
of the earth shall awake; some to everlasting 
life, and some to shame and everlasting con- 
tempt" (Dan. 12:2). 

"For thou shalt rest, and shalt stand in thy 
lot at the end of the days" (Dan. 12: 13). 

"And the tombs were opened and many bodies 
of the saints that had fallen asleep were raised 
and coming forth out of the tombs after His 
resurrection, they entered into the holy city and 
appeared unto many" (Matt. 27: 52). 

"He said, Give place, for the damsel is not 
dead, but sleepeth. And they laughed him to 
scorn" (Matt. 9:24). 

125 



Am I Immortal? 

Asleep in "Our friend Lazarus is fallen asleep, but I go 
the Grave fa^ j mav awake him out of sleep" (John 
11: 11). 

"And he kneeled down and cried with a loud 
voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. 
And when he had said this, he fell asleep" (Acts 
7:60). 

"For this cause many among you are weak and 
sickly and not a few sleep" (1 Cor. 11: 30). 

"A wife is bound for so long time as her hus- 
band liveth; but if the husband is fallen asleep 
she is free to be married to whom she will; only 
in the Lord" (1 Cor. 7:39). 

"Then He appeared to about five hundred 
brethren at once, of whom the greater part re- 
main now, but some are fallen asleep" (1 Cor. 
15:6). 

"And if Christ hath not been raised, your faith 
is vain, ye are yet in your sins. Then they also 
that are fallen asleep in Christ have perished" 
(1 Cor. 15: 17). 

"But now hath Christ been raised from the 
dead, the first fruits of them which are asleep" 
(1 Cor. 15:20). 

"We shall not all sleep, but we shall be 
changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, 
at the last trump; for the trumpet shall sound 

126 



Am I Immortal ? 

and the dead in Christ shall arise, and we shall Asleep iD 
be changed" (1 Cor. 15 : 52). the Grave 

"But we would not have you ignorant, breth- 
ren, concerning them that fall asleep; that ye 
sorrow not even as the rest who have no hope. 
For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, 
even so them also that are fallen asleep in Jesus 
will God bring with Him" (1 Thes. 4: 13). 

"Know this first, that in the last day mockers 
will come with mockery, walking after their own 
lusts and saying, Where is the promise of His 
coming? For from the days that the fathers 
fell asleep, all things continue as they were from 
the beginning of the creation" (2 Pet. 3:4). 

"For David after he had served his own 
generation fell asleep" (Acts 13:36). 

"For David is not ascended into the heavens" 
(Acts 2:34). 

"And I heard a voice from heaven saying, 
Write, Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord 
from henceforth; yea saith the Spirit, that they 
may rest from their labors; for their works fol- 
low with them" (Rev. 14: 13). 

In all these references to death there is noth- 
ing about the spirit going to heaven, or going 
then to be with Christ. They fell asleep and 
await the resurrection, when Christ shall come 

127 



Am I Immortal ? 

Asleep in for them. And so all sleep in the grave from 
the Grave Adam down ; all the old worthies ; all the re- 
deemed; all the saints, the Virgin Mary and all 
others. 

The ancient tombstones of the first century in 
the catacombs of Rome, during the time of the 
primitive Christian faith, bear many inscriptions 
such as these: "Asleep in Jesus ;" "Awaiting the 
Resurrection ;" "Death is but a Short Sleep ;" 
"She rests in Peace;" "Rest in Peace;" "God 
quicken thy Spirit;" "Weep not, my child, for 
death is not Eternal." Other longer ones, with 
representations of Lazarus being raised from the 
dead, read: "As Jesus rose from the dead, so 
will God raise them also that are fallen asleep 
in Jesus;" "Here Gordian, the courier from 
Gaul, strangled for the faith, with his whole 
family, Rest in Peace." 

After Lazarus was dead, our Lord told the 
disciples, "Our friend Lazarus is fallen asleep." 
They said, "If he sleep he shall do well." Then 
He told them plainly, "Lazarus is dead" (John 
11: 14). When He came to the tomb to raise 
him from the dead, He did not command body 
and spirit to unite again, but said simply: 
"Lazarus come forth." 

When He went to restore the little maiden to 



128 



Am I Immortal ? 

life, as He passed through the room in which Asleep in 
the Jews were noisily lamenting her death, He * ne Grave 
said, "She is not dead, but sleepeth. And they 
laughed Him to scorn." Then going with her 
father and mother and two of His disciples into 
the room where the dead body lay, He said noth- 
ing of any present separation of body and spirit, 
but taking her by the hand, said simply: 
"Maiden, arise I" (Mark 5:38). 

When, accompanied by His disciples and a 
great multitude, they approached the city of 
Nain and met the funeral of the widow's only 
son, whom He restored to life, our Lord did not 
call back the spirit of the dead as if it had de- 
parted from the body. 

"Now, when He drew near to the gate of the 
city, behold there was carried out one that was 
dead, the only son of his mother, and she was 
a widow: and much people of the city was with 
her. And when the Lord saw her, He had com- 
passion on her, and said unto her, Weep not. 
And He came nigh and touched the bier ; and the 
bearers stood still. And He said, Young man, I 
say unto thee, Arise. And he that was dead sat 
up, and began to speak. And He gave him to 
his mother" (Luke 7: 11). 

When the Sadducees, who did not believe in 

the resurrection, and were quite confident that 
129 



Am I Immortal ? 

Asleep in the dead were dead forever, came to our Lord 
the Grave an( j as ked Him a hypothetical question which 
they thought was unanswerable, about seven 
brethren who, according to Jewish law, had each 
married the same woman after a brother died 
leaving her childless, and wanted to know whose 
wife she would be at the resurrection, our Lord, 
after answering their question, told of how God 
had spoken to later generations as being the God 
of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, showing that they 
were yet alive, and that they did greatly err in 
their belief (Mark 12:27). They are asleep 
in the dust, "awaiting the resurrection/' "They 
do rest in their graves until the resurrection" 

The Sadducees did not ask whose wife is she 
now, but whose wife shall she be "at the resur- 
rection" How can anyone read all the fore- 
going passages of Scriptures, so plain and unmis- 
takable, without believing that the New Testa- 
ment teaches that the dead are asleep in the 
grave awaiting the resurrection? That is the 
universal belief of the Greek church, one of the 
most numerous and oldest of Christian Churches 
in the world. 

Christ said, "Whosoever liveth and believeth 
on me shall never die" (John 11:26). David 
in the Twenty-third Psalm speaks of "the valley 

130 



Am I Immortal ? 

of the shadow of death/' It is only "the shadow Asleep in 
of death" to the Christian. He will sleep in the the Grave 
dust of the earth, unconscious of the lapse of 
time, until his Lord shall come for him. 

When the Sadducees asked our Lord about the 
resurrection, He said: "They that are accounted 
worthy to attain to that world, and the resur- 
rection from the dead, neither marry nor are 
given in marriage: For neither can they die any 
more; for they are equal unto the angels; and 
are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection" 
(Luke 20:35). 

HEGIVETH HIS BELOVED SLEEP (Ps. 127:2) 

Of all the thoughts of God that are 
Borne inward unto souls afar 

Along the Psalmist's music deep, 
Now tell me if that any is 
For gift or grace surpassing this, 

"He giveth His beloved sleep?" 

"Sleep soft, beloved!" we sometimes say, 
But have no tune to charm away 

Sad dreams that through the eyelids creep ; 
But never doleful dreams again 
Shall break the happy slumber when 

"He giveth His beloved sleep." 

O earth, so full of dreary noise ! 
O men, with wailing in your voice! 

O delved gold, the wailers heap ! 
O strife, O curse, that o'er it fall ! 
God strikes a silence through you all, 

And "giveth His beloved sleep." 

131 



Am I Immortal ? 

Asleep in His dews drop mutely on the hill, 

the Grave His cloud above it saileth still, 

Though on its slope men sow and reap ; 
More softly than the dew is shed, 
Or cloud is floated overhead, 

"He giveth His beloved sleep." 

— Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 



THE SINGING IN GOD'S ACRE. 

Out yonder in the moonlight, wherein God's Acre lies, 
Go angels walking to and fro, singing their lullabys. 
Their radiant wings are folded, and their eyes are 

bended low, 
And as they sing among the beds where flowers delight 

to grow, 

"Sleep, oh Sleep!" 
The Shepherd guardeth His sheep. 
Fast passeth the night away, 
Soon cometh the glorious day; 
Sleep, weary ones, while ye may. 

* 'Sleep, oh sleep." 

The flowers within God's Acre see that fair and won- 
drous sight, 

And hear the angels singing to the sleepers through 
the night. 

And lo! throughout the hours of day those gentle 
flowers prolong 

The music of the angels in that tender slumber song, 

"Sleep, oh sleep." 
The Shepherd loveth His sheep. 
He that guardeth His flock the best 
Hath folded them to His loving breast ; 
So sleep ye now, and take your rest, 

"Sleep, oh sleep!" 

132 



Am I Immortal ? 

From angels and from flowers the years have learned Asleep in 

that soothing song, the Grave 

And with its heavenly music speed the days and nights 

along; 
So through all time, whose flight the Shepherd's vigils 

glorify, 
God's Acre slumbereth in the grace of that sweet 

lullaby : 

"Sleep, oh Sleep!" 
The Shepherd loveth His sheep. 
Fast speedeth the night away, 
Soon cometk the glorious day ; 
Sleep, weary ones, while ye may, 

"Sleep, oh sleep!" 

—Eugene Field. 



133 



Am I Immortal ? 
RESURRECTION FROM THE GRAVE. 

The Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, the good 
news to be preached to every creature, was the 
forgiveness of sins, the resurrection from the 
grave, and life everlasting, as the gift of God 
through Jesus Christ our Lord. The body re- 
turns to dust in the grave, but out of it at the 
resurrection, just as a stalk springs forth from 
the germ of a grain that perishes in the ground, 
a new spiritual body shall burst forth into ever- 
lasting life. 

There is nothing more wonderful in this than 
in the law according to which our present life 
springs into being from a germ. Chemists and 
microscopists tell us that some germs of even 
very low forms of life are practically indestruct- 
ible, and it should not be considered beyond be- 
lief that a germ of life to be resurrected accord- 
ing to "the law of the spirit of life in Christ 
Jesus," should be indestructible. 

The life immortal at the resurrection will be- 
gin very much as this present life began. A 
little while ago we had no conscious state of 
existence, and now we live. Again for a longer 
or shorter time in the grave we will have no 
consciousness of existence in that dreamless 



134 



Am I Immortal ? 

sleep, until at the resurrection through Christ Resurrection 
we shall be restored to life everlasting. In refer- * rom the 
ring to the first resurrection in the twentieth 
chapter of Revelation, we are plainly told: "The 
rest of the dead lived not until the thousand 
years should be finished. " 

It is not uncommon today for Christians to 
speak of a spiritual resurrection, while ignoring 
to a great extent a resurrection of the body. If 
the spirit at death went into a state of blissful 
life, there would be no need of a resurrection. 
A spiritual resurrection merely, would be no 
resurrection at all. 

There is little or no foundation in the Bible 
for belief in a bodiless resurrection. In the life 
immortal we are not to live as disembodied 
spirits. There is nothing in the New Testament 
to indicate a conscious state of existence apart 
from a body. At the resurrection we are to 
have a body "like Christ's glorious body" (Phil. 
3: 21). The disciples after Christ's resurrection 
found an empty grave (John 20: 5). The Jews 
considered it necessary to circulate the false- 
hood that His disciples came by night and stole 
His body, although the tomb had been sealed 
and a guard of Roman soldiers put in charge 
of it (Matt. 28: 13). 

135 



Am I Immortal ? 

Resurrection When after His resurrection He appeared 
from the suddenly in their midst so that they thought He 
was a spirit, He said, "See my hands and my 
feet, that it is I myself ; handle me and see ! for 
a spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye behold me 
having. And while they yet disbelieved for joy, 
and wondered, He said unto them, Have ye here 
anything to eat ? And they gave Him a piece of 
a broiled fish, and He ate before them" (Luke 
24:39). 

Our Lord's body after His resurrection was 
not limited by time or space, or gravitation. He 
appeared suddenly in the midst of them when 
they were in a room and the door was locked 
for fear of the Jews. (John 20:26.) He van- 
ished from their sight in an instant after He 
had blessed the bread and handed it to them. 
(Luke 24: 31.) They knew it was the Lord and 
yet He must have been greatly changed. (Matt. 
28:16; Luke 24:32.) His bodily appearance 
to Saul on the road to Damascus, struck him 
down with temporary blindness, but changed a 
persecuting unbeliever into a believer and 
apostle. (Acts 9:1-) 

In that wonderful address to the multitude 
of Jews who gathered together to hear Him on 
the shore of the sea of Galilee, after the miracle 

136 



Am I Immortal ? 

of the loaves and fishes, Christ said, "For this Resurrection 
is the will of my Father that every one that be- from the 
holdeth the Son and believeth on Him shall have 
eternal life; and / will raise him up at the last 
day" (John 6: 40). 

The early Christians desirous of knowing 
how the dead were to be raised, and what kind 
of a body the resurrection body would be, were 
told that it would not be the same kind of body 
that was laid in the grave. "Thou sowest not 
the body which shall be. It is sown in corrup- 
tion. It is raised in incorruption. It is sown 
in weakness; it is raised in glory. It is sown a 
natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. 
There is a natural body and there is also a 
spiritual body" (1 Cor. 15:36). "It" in every 
statement refers to the body. Could anything 
be plainer than this? 

We are not to be unclothed as spirits, but 
clothed upon with new bodies. "For we shall 
not be unclothed, but clothed upon that what is 
mortal may be swallowed up of life" (2 Cor. 
5:4). 

"For verily in this bodily frame we groan, 
longing to be clothed upon with our habitation 
which is from heaven" (2 Cor. 5:2). 

"For the trumpet shall sound, and the dead 

shall be raised incorruptible, and we (who shall 
137 



Am I Immortal ? 

Resurrection be living then) shall be changed. For this cor- 
from the ruptible must put on incorruption, and this mor- 
tal must put on immortality. But when this cor- 
ruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this 
mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall 
come to pass the saying that is written, Death 
is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is 
thy victory? O grave, where is thy sting? The 
sting of death is sin; and the power of sin is the 
law: but thanks be to God who giveth us the 
victory through our Lord Jesus Christ' 9 (1 Cor. 
15:52). Here again we have the plain state- 
ment in the New Testament that man is mortal. 
Then here too we see that only the resurrection 
of the body could properly be called a victory 
over death and the grave. 

We are told in the Acts that the apostles went 
everywhere, "preaching Jesus and the resur- 
rection." When our Lord upbraided those who 
had not believed when others told them of His 
resurrection, He said, "Preach the good tidings 
to the whole creation'' (Mark 16: 15). In the 
Acts wherever "preached the Gosper' is men- 
tioned, we find in the margin (Greek) "brought 
the good tidings." "And every day in the tem- 
ple and at home they ceased not to teach and to 
bring the good tidings of Jesus as the Christ" 

(Acts 5:42). 

138 



Am I Immortal ? 

"And when they had brought the good tidings Resurrection 
to that city and made many disciples, they re- ^omthe 
turned to Lystra" (Acts 14:21). "And Paul, Grave 
as his custom was, went in unto them and for 
three Sabbath days reasoned with them from 
the Scriptures opening and alleging that it be- 
hooved the Christ to suffer, and to rise again 
from the dead, and that Jesus whom I proclaim 
unto you is the Christ" (Acts 17: 2). 

"And some of them said, what would this 
babbler say ? Others, He seemeth to be a setter 
forth of strange gods; because he brought the 
good tidings of Jesus and the resurrection" 
(Acts 17: 18). 

"Verily, verily, I say unto you, the hour 
cometh and now is when the dead shall hear the 
voice of the Son of God and they that hear shall 
live" (John 5:25). 

"Marvel not at this; for the hour cometh in 
which all that are in the tombs shall hear His 
voice and shall come forth; they that have done 
good to the resurrection of life, and they that 
have done evil to the resurrection of judgment" 
(John 5:28). 

"For our citizenship is in heaven, whence also 
we wait for a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, 
who shall fashion anew the body of our humilia- 

139 



Am I Immortal ? 

Resurrection tion that it may be conformed to the body of 
from the His glory' 9 (Phil. 3: 20). 

"For if we have become united with Him in 
the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the 
likeness of His resurrection 99 (Rom. 6: 5). 

"But if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus 
from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up 
Christ Jesus from the dead shall also quicken 
(bring to life again) your mortal bodies through 
His Spirit that dwelleth in you" (Rom. 8: 11). 

"And not only so but ourselves also who have 
the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves 
groan within ourselves waiting for our adoption, 
to wit, the redemption of our body 99 (Rom. 
8:23). 

"For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ 
shall all be made alive but each in his own 
order; Christ the first fruits; then they that are 
Christ's at His coming 99 (1 Cor. 15:22). 

"For the trumpet shall sound and the dead 
shall be raised incorruptible and we shall be 
changed" (1 Cor. 15:52). 

"For if we believe that Jesus died and rose 
again, even so also them that are fallen asleep 
in Jesus will God bring with Him 99 (1 Thes. 
4: 14). 

"For the Lord himself shall descend from 

140 



Am I Immortal ? 

heaven with a shout, with the voice of the arch- Resurrection 
angel and with the trump of God ; and the dead * rom tne 
in Christ shall rise -first; then we that are alive * xrave 
that are left, shall together with them be caught 
up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; 
and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Where- 
fore comfort one another with these words" 
(2 Thes. 4:16). 

"Which was given us in Christ before time 
eternal, but hath now been manifested by the 
appearance of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who 
abolished death, and brought life and immor- 
tality to light through the good tidings" (2 Tim. 
1:9, 10). 

"And the ransomed of the Lord shall return 
and come with singing unto Zion; and ever- 
lasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall 
obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing 
shall flee away" (Is. 35: 10). 

"Thy dead shall live; my dead body shall 
arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in the 
dust; for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and 
the earth shall cast forth the dead" (Is. 26: 19). 

"He hath swallowed up death forever, and the 
Lord God will wipe away tears from off all 
faces" (Is. 25: 8). 

"For thou hast delivered my soul from death, 

141 



Am I Immortal ? 

Resurrection mine eyes from tears, and my feet from falling" 
from the ( Ps . n6 :8 ). 

"Who redeemeth thy life from destruction, 
and crowneth thee with loving kindness and ten- 
der mercies" (Ps. 103: 4). 

"But the loving kindness of the Lord is from 
everlasting unto everlasting upon them that fear 
Him" (Ps. 103: 17). 

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord 
Jesus Christ who according to his great mercy 
begat us again unto a living hope by the resur- 
rection of Jesus Christ from the dead, unto an 
inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that 
fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, 
who by the power of God are guarded through 
faith unto a salvation ready to be revealed at 
the last time" (1 Pet. 1:3). 

"I am the first and the last, and the Living 
One; and I was dead and behold I am alive 
forevermore, and I have the keys of death and 
of Hades (the grave)" (Rev. 1: 18). 

"To him that overcometh I will give to eat 
of the tree of life which is in the Paradise of 
God" (Rev. 2:7). 

"He that hath an ear to hear, let him hear 
what the Spirit saith unto the churches. He that 
overcometh shall not be hurt of the second 

142 



Grave 



Am I Immortal ? 

death" (Rev. 2: 11). "Blessed and holy is he Resurrection 
that hath part in the first resurrection: Over from the 
these the second death hath no power" (Rev. 
20:6). 

"Now if Christ is preached that He hath been 
raised from the dead, how say some among you 
that there is no resurrection of the dead? But 
if there is no resurrection of the dead, neither 
hath Christ been raised, then is our preaching 
vain, and your faith is also vain. Yea, and we 
are found false witnesses of God; because we 
witnessed of God that He raised up Christ whom 
He raised not up if so be that the dead are not 
raised. For if the dead are not raised, neither 
hath Christ been raised, your faith is vain; ye 
are yet in your sins. Then they also which are 
fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in this 
life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of 
all men most pitiable." 

"But now, hath Christ been raised from the 
dead the first fruits of them that are asleep. 
For since by man came death, by man came also 
the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam 
all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. 
But each in his own order: Christ the first 
fruits; then they that are Christ's at His coming. 
Then cometh the end, when He shall deliver 

143 



Grave 



Am I Immortal ? 

Resurrection the kingdom to God ; even the Father ; when He 
from the s hall have abolished all rule and all authority 
and power. For He must reign till He hath put 
all his enemies under His feet. The last enemy 
that shall be abolished is death" (1 Cor. 15 : 20). 
Here we have the plain teaching of the New 
Testament by the apostle Paul. The dead "are 
asleep.' 9 Christ at His resurrection from the 
dead was "the -first fruits" of the resurrection, 
"of them that are asleep/ 9 and none of the dead 
from Adam downward had "been made alive" 
again before then, but they shall be made alive 
again when He comes again for them at the 
resurrection day* 

Bt. Bev. M. Clark, D. D., L. L. D., Boston Monday 
Lectures — Dr. Carpenter in his principles of mental 
physiology, quotes with approval from the late Charles 
Baxter, as follows: "Irresistible, undeniable facts 
demonstrate that man is not a den wherein two 
enemies are chained together, but one being; that 
soul and body are one — one and indivisible. We had 
better face this great fact. 'Tis no good to blink 
it. Our knowledge of physiology has come to a point 
where the old idea of man's constitution must be 
thrown aside. To struggle against the overwhelming 
force of science under the notion of shielding religion 
is mere play. 



144 



Am I Immortal ? 
THE LAW OF THE KINGDOM. 

Is the teaching of the New Testament of 
immortality through Christ in accordance with 
what we know of the laws governing the world 
as part of the creation of God? This being 
God's world it must be fulfilling His design in 
its creation, and be governed by His laws. Pro- 
fessor Drummond has shown that in the various 
kingdoms of nature — mineral, vegetable and 
animal— the kingdom below cannot reach up to 
the kingdom above, but that the kingdom above 
must reach down and lift the lower kingdom up 
into it. The vegetable reaches down and takes 
up the mineral into itself. The animal reaches 
down and takes up the vegetable into itself. 
And is it not so also with the spiritual king- 
dom? 

If in God's creation of this world, as seems 
probable, there has been a distinct act of creation 
in raising a new and higher species out of the 
one below it, and if this has led successively 
from the lowest form of existence to mortal man 
at the top; it would be continuing the order of 
creation to have the next step from man mortal 
to man immortal. 

If mortal man, having sinned, cannot of him- 
self attain to immortal life, must not Immor- 
145 



Am I Immortal ? 

The Law of tality reach down and lift him up into it? And 
the Kingdom j s no t this what the Bible teaches ? Christ said : 

"Except a man be born from above, he cannot 

see the kingdom of God" (John 3:3). 

And so we have the kingdoms of creation in 

this order : first, the mineral ; then the vegetable ; 

then the animal; and last, the kingdom of God 

— or life immortal. 

Henry Drummond. Natural Law in the Spiritual 
World. — What is the difference between a crystal and 
an organism, a stone and a plant? They both have 
much in common. Both are made from the same atoms. 
Both display the same qualities of matter. Both are 
subject to the physical laws. Both may be very beauti- 
ful. But beside possessing all that the crystal has, the 
plant possesses something more ; a mysterious something 
called life. This life is not something that existed in 
the crystal in a less developed form. There is nothing 
at all like it in the crystal. There is nothing like the 
first beginning of it in the crystal, not a trace or a 
symptom of it. This plant is tenanted by something 
new, an original and unique possession, added over and 
above all to the properties common to both. When 
from vegetable we rise to animal life, here again we 
find something original and unique — unique at least as 
compared with the mineral. From animal life we 
again ascend to spiritual life — and here also is some- 
thing new, something still more unique. 

He who lives the spiritual life has a distinct kind of 
life added to all the other phases of life which he mani- 
fests — a kind of life infinitely more distinct than is the 
active life of a plant from the inertia of a stone. The 
spiritual man is more distinct in point of fact than is 



146 



Am I Immortal ? 

the plant from the stone. This is the one possible com- The Law of 
parison in Nature for the widest distinction in Nature ; the Kingdom 
but compared with the difference between the natural 
and spiritual, the gulf which divides the organic from 
the inorganic is a hair's breadth. 

The natural man belongs essentially to this present 
order of things. He is endowed simply with a high 
quality of the natural animal life. But it is a life of 
so poor a quality that is not life at all. He that hath 
not the Son hath not the life; but he that hath the Son 
hath life; a new distinct and supernatural endowment. 
He is not of this world. He is of the timeless state of 
eternity. 



147 



Am I Immortal ? 
THE GOSPEL OF THE RESURRECTION, 

Our Lord said at the grave of Lazarus: "I 
am the resurrection and the life" (John 11 : 25). 

In these days when almost everything except 
the resurrection is proclaimed in the name of 
Jesus Christ, it is startling to realize that the 
"Gospel/' or "Good News/' or "Good Tidings" 
which the Apostles were to proclaim throughout 
the world, and which constituted Christianity, 
was Christ's resurrection from the dead, the 
forgiveness of sins, the gift of eternal life, and 
the resurrection of the bodies of believers from 
the grave through Him; "who only hath immor- 
tality" (1 Tim. 6:12), and who only can 6e- 
stow it. 

After His resurrection, we are told of our 
Lord on the way to Emmaus with disciples who 
did not know Him in His risen form: "Then 
opened He their understanding that they might 
understand the Scriptures, and said unto them, 
thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ 
to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third 
day" (Luke 24:25). 

When before His ascension His disciples were 
gathered together with Him in the mountain in 
Galilee by appointment, we are told that after 



148 



Am I Immortal ? 

upbraiding those who had not believed when The Gospel 
others who had seen Him had told them of His °* the 
resurrection, He said: "Preach the good tidings 
(of His resurrection) to the whole creation" 
(Mark 16:15); and that was "the great com- 
mission/ 9 that was Christianity. 

Then after His ascension the eleven Apostles 
chose a successor to Judas, that he also might 
be "a witness with us of His resurrection" 
(Acts 1:22). 

When the Apostles knew of Christ's resur- 
rection, and learned of resurrection from the 
dead and life eternal through Him, the natural 
death of this world ceased to have any terrors 
for them, and most of them gladly offered up 
their lives in testifying to the resurrection of 
Christ from the dead, and in proclaiming a 
coming resurrection from the grave of those 
who believe in Him. 

In the history of the early Christian church in 
the Acts of the Apostles we are told that, "He 
was received up, after He had given command- 
ment through the Holy Spirit unto the apostles 
whom He had chosen: to whom He also showed 
Himself alive after His passion by many proofs, 
appearing unto them by the space of forty days, 
and speaking the things concerning the kingdom 

149 



Am I Immortal ? 

The Gospel of God" (Acts 1:2). In Acts 4: S3 we are told: 
of the "And with great power gave the Apostles their 
witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus; 
and great grace was upon them all." 

Peter's great address on the day of Pentecost 
was on the resurrection of Christ, "Whom God 
raised up, having loosed the pangs of death; 
because it was not possible that He should be 
holden of it" (Acts 2: 24). He spoke of David 
prophetically foreseeing the resurrection of 
Christ and saying that He would not be left in 
the grave, nor would His flesh see corruption. 
(Acts 2:31.) 

When Peter and John were preaching to a 
multitude, after the healing of a man who had 
been a cripple from birth, "the priests and the 
captain of the temple and the Sadducees came 
upon them, being sore troubled because they 
taught the people and proclaimed in Jesus the 
resurrection from the dead" (Acts 4:1). 

When Peter as a Jew was sent for by the 
Roman centurion Cornelius, he began his address 
with: "Of a truth I perceive that God is no 
respecter of persons, but that in every nation he 
that feareth Him and worketh righteousness is 
acceptable to Him;" and closed it thus: "Him 
God raised up the third day and gave Him to be 

150 



Am I Immortal ? 

made manifest, not to all the people, but unto The Gospel 

witnesses that were chosen before of God, even to °* the 

us who ate and drank with Him after He arose 

from the dead. And He charged us to preach 

unto the people, and to testify that this is He 

who is ordained of God to be the judge of the 

living and the dead. To Him bear all the 

prophets witness, that through His name every 

one that believeth on Him shall receive remission 

of their sins" (Acts 10: 34). Death having been 

the result of sin, the remission of sins through 

Christ will restore the immortal life which had 

been forfeited. 

Paul preaching in Antioch said: "But God 
raised Him from the dead: and He was seen for 
many days of them that came up with Him from 
Galilee to Jerusalem who are now His witnesses 
unto the people. And we bring you good tidings 
of the promise made unto the fathers; that God 
hath fulfilled the same unto our children in that 
He raised up Jesus: as also it is written in the 
second Psalm, Thou art my Son; this day have 
I begotten Thee" (Acts 13: 30). 

When Paul preached to the philosophers at 
Athens, they listened to him until he proclaimed 
Christ's resurrection: "Now when they heard of 
the resurrection from the dead, some mocked, 

151 



Am I Immortal ? 

The Gospel but others said : We will hear thee again about 
of * he this matter" (Acts 17:32). 

When the chief priests in council were trying 
Paul at Jerusalem, he said : "Touching the hope 
of the resurrection of the dead I am called in 
question" (Acts 23:6). "And the night follow- 
ing the Lord stood by him and said, Be of good 
cheer: for as thou hast testified concerning me 
at Jerusalem, so must thou bear witness also at 
Rome" (Acts 23:11). 

When Paul was arrested by the Jews and 
taken before Governor Felix, he said in his de- 
fense: "Touching the resurrection of the dead I 
am called in question this day" (Acts 24: 21). 

When Paul was brought before King Agrippa, 
he said: "Why is it judged incredible with you 
that God should raise the dead? Having there- 
fore obtained the help that is from God, I stand 
unto this day testifying to small and great, say- 
ing nothing but what the prophets and Moses 
did say should come, how that the Christ must 
suffer and that He first by the resurrection of 
the dead should proclaim light both to the people 
and to the Gentiles" (Acts 26: 8). 

The Epistle to the Romans begins: "Paul, a 
servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, 
separated unto the good tidings of God which 

152 



Resurrection 



Am I Immortal ? 

He promised afore through His prophets in the The Gospel 
Holy Scriptures, concerning His Son, who was ^ the 
born of the seed of David according to the flesh, 
who was declared to be the Son of God with 
power according to the spirit of holiness by the 
resurrection from the dead; even Christ Jesus 
our Lord" (Rom. 1:1). 

Paul said to them: "For the law of the Spirit 
of life in Christ Jesus made me free from the 
law of sin and death" (Rom. 8:2). 

"For none of us liveth to himself, and none 
dieth to himself. For whether we live, we live 
unto the Lord; or whether we die, we die unto 
the Lord; whether we live therefore or die, we 
are the Lord's. For to this end Christ died and 
lived again that He might be Lord of both the 
dead and the living" (Rom. 14: 7). 

In Paul's Epistle to the Thessalonians he 
said: "For they themselves report concerning us 
what manner of entering in we had unto you; 
and how ye turned unto God from idols, to serve 
a living and true God, and to wait for His Son 
from heaven, whom He raised from the dead 
even Jesus, who delivereth us from the wrath to 
come" (1 Thes. 1:9). 

In his Epistle to the Philippians, Paul said: 
"That I may know Him and the power of His 

153 



Am I Immortal ? 

The Gospel resurrection, and the fellowship of His suffer- 

of the ings, becoming conformed unto His death ; if by 

Resurrection T ... ., .. 

any means 1 may attain unto the resurrection 

from the dead" (Phil. 3: 10). 

In his Epistle to the Romans, he said: "But 
if the spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from 
the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ 
Jesus from the dead shall give life also to your 
mortal bodies through His Spirit that dwelleth 
in you" (Rom. 8: 11). 

The apostles did not preach about our going 
to heaven at death. They preached of Christ's 
coming from heaven for us at the resurrection 
day. 

This is made very plain in John 21:21. 
"Peter therefore seeing Him, saith to Jesus, 
Lord and what shall this man do? Jesus saith 
unto him, If I will that he tarry till I come, 
what is that to thee? Follow thou me. Tins 
saying went forth among the brethren, that that 
disciple should not die. Yet Jesus said not unto 
him that he should not die ; but if I will that he 
tarry till I come (remain alive until Christ 
should come for them both living and dead, at the 
resurrection day) what is that to thee?" 

In celebrating the Lord's Supper we are not 
told that we show forth His death until we go to 

154 



Resurrection 



Am I Immortal ? 

Him when we die, but that "we do show forth The Gospel 
the Lord's death until He come" for us at the of the 
resurrection day. 

When Christ told men to invite the poor, and 
maimed, and blind to their feasts, He did not say 
they would be recompensed when they died, but: 
"Thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection 
of the just" (Luke 14: 14). 

The fundamental theme of the preaching of 
the Apostles was Christ's resurrection from the 
dead, and the resurrection of believers through 
Him when He came for them at the last day. 

And so we can understand now why the Resur- 
rection Day of the week was celebrated as the 
Lord's day for worship instead of the Jewish 
Sabbath, because on that day Christ completed 
the work of a new creation in Him. 

Rev. Frederick W. Robertson, T>. D. f of England — 
And so came that strange wrong doctrine exhibited at 
Corinth, where immortality was taught separate from 
and in opposition to the doctrine of the resurrection. 

Martin Luther, Vol. 51, P. 337 — If a man wishes to 
preach the Gospel, it must be in brief the Gospel of 
the resurrection of Christ. Whoever does not preach 
that is no Apostle, for that is the supreme article of 
our faith ; and the genuine books — the noblest books — 
are such as most clearly teach and impress the truth 
of the resurrection. 



155 



Am I Immortal ? 

WHAT CHRIST THE LORD SAID OF 
THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. 

"The Kingdom of heaven is likened unto a 
man that sowed good seed in his field ; but while 
men slept his enemy came and sowed tares also 
among the wheat, and went away. But when the 
blade sprang up, and brought forth fruit, then 
appeared tares also. And the servant of the 
household came and said unto him, Sir, didst 
thou not sow good seed in thy field? Whence 
then hath it tares? And he said unto him, An 
enemy hath done this. And the servant said unto 
him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them 
up? But he saith, Nay; lest haply while ye 
gather up the tares, ye root up the wheat with 
them. Let both grow together until the harvest: 
and in the time of the harvest I will say to the 
reapers, Gather up first the tares, and bind them 
in bundles to burn them; but gather the wheat 
into my barn" (Matt. 13:24). 

"Then He left the multitudes, and went into 
the house: and His disciples came unto Him, 
saying, Explain unto us the parable of the tares 
of the field. And He answered and said, He 
that soweth the good seed is the Son of man; 
and the field is the world; and the good seed, 



156 



Am I Immortal ? 

these are the sons of the Kingdom; and the What Christ 

tares are the sons of the evil one; and the enemy The Lord 

that sowed them is the devil; and the harvest __. , £ 

Kingdom of 

is the end of the world; and the reapers are the Heaven 
angels. As therefore the tares are gathered up 
and burned with fire, so shall it be at the end of 
the world. The Son of man shall send forth His 
angels, and they shall gather out of His King- 
dom all things that cause stumbling, and them 
that do iniquity, and shall cast them into the 
furnace of fire; there shall be weeping and 
gnashing of teeth. Then shall the righteous 
shine forth as the sun in the Kingdom of their 
Father. He that hath ears, let him hear" (Matt. 
13:36). 

The tares are cast into the furnace and de- 
stroyed. This is in harmony with all the other 
teachings of our Lord about the punishment of 
those who prefer to go on in sin rather than to 
accept redemption through Christ, and live in 
obedience to Him. 

"Again the Kingdom of heaven is like unto a 
net that was cast into the sea, and gathered of 
every kind; which when it was filled, they drew 
up upon the beach, and they sat down and gath- 
ered the good into vessels, but the bad they cast 
away. So shall it be at the end of the world; 

157 



Am I Immortal ? 

What Christ the angels shall come forth and sever the wicked 

The Lord f rom among the righteous, and shall cast them 

„. . into the furnace of fire; there shall be weep- 

Kingdom of r 

Heaven * n S an( ^ gnashing of teeth" (Matt. 13:47). 

The bad in the net were cast away as refuse 

and destroyed, 

"And if thy hand cause thee to stumble, cut it 
off; it is good for thee to enter into life maimed, 
rather than having thy two hands to go into 
Gehenna, into the unquenchable fire." 

"And if thy foot causes thee to stumble, cut it 
off; it is good for thee to enter into life halt, 
rather than having thy two feet to be cast into 
Gehenna." 

"And if thine eye cause thee to stumble, cast it 
out: it is good for thee to enter into the King- 
dom of God with one eye, rather than having 
two eyes to be cast into Gehenna; where their 
worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched" 
(Mark Q:4<3). 

This teaching of Gehenna is the same as that 
of the preceding parables. The refuse is de- 
stroyed by fire. Gehenna was the place in the 
valley of Hinnom outside of Jerusalem where 
the filth of the city was taken and destroyed by 
fire. In olden times the Moabites sacrificed 
children here unto Molech, their idol god, and 

158 



Am I Immortal ? 

the Jews showed their detestation of this by What Christ 

making it a place where the filth of Jerusalem ^^ e ^ord 

j . , , . ., Said of the 

was removed to, as there were no sewers in the _. _ x 

' Kingdom of 

city to carry off the refuse and filth. The worm n eaven 
of putrefaction was always present, while the 
fire was destroying it. 

The teaching of this parable was, doubtless, 
perfectly understood at the time. When a dogma 
of purgatory, and of eternal punishment as to 
duration was promulgated by a paganized 
church, a misinterpretation of this teaching of 
our Lord followed, and gradually it became 
taught by many that unbelievers would be kept 
alive forever and tormented by fire and by a 
worm that lived forever. A worse perversion of 
Scripture has never occurred in all the long 
centuries of Christianity. The plain and simple 
teaching of the Bible is everywhere in opposition 
to this. 

It has been said that the early Christians were 
divided into two classes: those who believed in 
the destruction of all evil at last ; and those who 
believed in " the restoration of all things ," or in 
other words, that good would ultimately over- 
come all evil, and that all mankind would be 
ultimately saved through Christ.* While the 
teachings of the New Testament concerning the 

* The Scriptural Doctrine of Retribution. (Rev. Thomas K. 
Beecher, D. D.) 

159 



Am I Immortal ? 

What Christ result of sin have been presented somewhat fully 
The Lord already, there are a number of passages of Scrip- 

~. , t ture seemingly divergent from this. One of 

Kingdom of ew & 

Heaven these ls * ne Parable of the rich man and 
Lazarus; and another, our Lord's saying to the 
thief on the cross, "Verily I say unto thee, today 
thou shalt be with me in Paradise." 

In the allegorical Parable of the Rich Man and 
Lazarus (Luke 16), told by our Lord to rebuke 
the Pharisees "who were covetous/' "who were 
lovers of money," and who believed that the rich 
were blessed of God and would go "to Abraham's 
bosom" at their death, while the poor were ac- 
cursed of God and would go to "Tartarus" (their 
idea of a place of torment), our Lord seems to 
have told this Parable according to their ideas, 
but reversed the result; Lazarus went to Abra- 
ham's bosom, and the Rich Man went to Tar- 
tarus. But in this allegory there was no separa- 
tion between body and spirit. Lazarus was car- 
ried bodily by the angels and deposited in Abra- 
ham's bosom, while the Rich Man awoke in Tar- 
tarus with all his bodily senses; sight, hearing, 
thirst and bodily torment. 

The Jews believed in Tartarus as a place in 
the underworld where the wicked were punished 
by tormenting fire. What an awful rebuke this 



160 



Am I Immortal ? 

was to those sneering Pharisees ! In this Parable What Christ 
also, there was something prophetic of the way The Lord 

. ,_• i_ .u t # jlili- • t a Said of the 

in which the Jews refused to believe in our Lord Kin2dom of 

after His resurrection. "If they believe not Heaven 

Moses and the Prophets concerning Him, neither 

will they believe although one rose from the 

dead." 

An explanation has been given of the saying 
of our Lord on the cross to the thief crucified 
with Him: "Verily I say unto thee, today thou 
shalt be with me in Paradise/' that if after 
punctuation came to be used the comma had been 
placed after the word "today" instead of before 
it, it would have meant that on this day of His 
humiliation and crucifixion, He assured the re- 
pentant thief that he would be with Him in 
Paradise. 

There are doubtless many other passages in 
the Scriptures which might indicate a separation 
between body and spirit at death, but most of 
these when viewed in the light of the plain state- 
ments so numerously given to the contrary take 
on a different meaning. 



161 



Am I Immortal ? 
ABOUT HEAVEN. 

Many will say after reading this far: But is 
not all that is preached about heaven true ? Yes, 
it is true; but according to the plain teaching 
of the Scriptures it will not be attained until the 
resurrection day. 

Consider how little is said about heaven in 
the Bible until we come to the description of 
the end of the world in the book of Revelation. 
So true is this, that clergymen are at their wits' 
end to describe what heaven is now, and where 
it is, and have to draw upon their imagination 
to supply what is not to be found in all the 
other books of the Bible. 

God created this beautiful world, with all that 
it contains, for the benefit and pleasure of man- 
kind. All evils and sorrows, and vicissitudes, 
and death, have been brought into it as a result 
of sin. There will be none of these in the life to 
come. It will surpass all that is happiest and 
best in this world in infinite proportion in 
another and an infinitely better world. 

"Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither 
hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive 
the things which God hath prepared for them 
who love Him" (1 Cor. 2:9). 

The new and everlasting life of freedom from 
162 



Am I Immortal ? 

sin and perfection of being does not come to About 
Christians at their death. It will begin at the Heaven 
Resurrection Day when Christ will come for 
them. But, as in perfect natural sleep, there 
will be no conscious lapse of time between the 
closing of the eyes in the sleep of death, and the 
opening of them in a glorious resurrection at 
the last day. 

That is the plain teaching of the Lord Jesus 
Christ and His Apostles. The Bible does not 
teach that evil in itself, or evil men shall be 
immortal. It teaches that evil in all its forms 
shall be destroyed. It teaches that only "He 
that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap 
everlasting life" (Gal. 6:8). 

At Christ's ascension the angels said: "Ye 
men of Galilee, why stand ye looking into 
heaven? This Jesus who was received up from 
you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as 
ye beheld Him going into heaven" (Acts 1 : 11). 

Christ Himself, in speaking of that time, said : 
"For the Son of man shall come in the glory of 
His Father with His angels, and then shall He 
render unto every man according to his deeds" 
(Matt. 16:27). 

This coming again does not refer to the time 

of one's death, as is so often erroneously stated, 

but to the Resurrection Day. "For the Lord 
163 



Am I Immortal ? 

About Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, 
Heaven vvith the voice of the archangel and with the 
trump of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise 
first, then we that are alive that are left, shall 
together with them be caught up in the clouds to 
meet the Lord in the air ; and so shall we ever be 
with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another 
with these words" (1 Thes. 4: 16). 

They were to "wait for His Son from heaven" 
(1 Thes. 1: 10). Christ said that that would be 
the time of redemption for His followers. (Luke 
21:28). 

"Now we beseech you, brethren, touching the 
coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and our gather- 
ing together unto Him; to the end that ye be not 
quickly shaken from your mind, nor yet troubled 
either by spirit or by word, or by epistle as from 
us, as that the day of the Lord is just at hand" 
(2 Thes. 2:1). They were cautioned not to 
expect it very soon. It may be soon now. 

"Knowing that He that raised up the Lord 
Jesus shall raise us up also with Jesus, and 
shall present us with you" (2 Cor. 4: 14). 

"For the body is for the Lord, and the Lord 
for the body, and God hath raised the Lord, 
and will raise us up through His power" (1 Cor. 
6:13). 

"In my Father's house are many mansions; 
164 



Am I Immortal ? 

if it were not so I would have told you, for I About 



go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and 
prepare a place for you, / will come again, and 
will receive you unto myself; that where I am, 
there ye may be also" (John 14: 2). 

If the dead are all asleep in the dust and 
awaiting the resurrection, what a fraud spirit- 
ualism is, and how foolish it is to believe in 
ghosts ! There is nothing in the performances 
of spiritualism that cannot be explained by 
fraud, or telepathy, or hallucination, or hyp- 
notism. 

The belief in a resurrection from the dead 
through Christ is a rational belief upon which 
Christianity was founded. It was the primitive 
faith of the Christian Church, and has been 
covered up through beliefs of paganism being 
received into a corrupted Christianity. 

Christ's ministers should be preaching "Jesus 
and the resurrection/ ' as the early Apostles did. 
That would revolutionize the world today, as it 
did then. The lives of men believing in a resur- 
rection of the body, and life everlasting after- 
ward through Christ the Son of God, would 
purify religion and civil life, and politics, as 
nothing else ever will or ever did. 

The preaching and teaching of the forgive- 
ness of sins, of eternal life through Christ, and 
165 



Heaven 



Am I Immortal ? 

About of Christ as our example in Christian living, is 
Heaven transforming the world today; but that other 
great truth of the Gospel, the resurrection of 
the body, is being strangely overlooked, It 
should be proclaimed from every Christian pul- 
pit. 

Men would go to church then to learn of an 
everlasting life through Christ in an actual 
body at the resurrection day. "There is a 
natural body and there is a spiritual body" 
(1 Cor. 15:44). 

Even spiritually minded men are ceasing to 
attend church services regularly, because they 
often have to listen to talks on sociology, or 
politics, or other subjects which they have been 
surfeited with in the magazines and news- 
papers. 

Men are quite willing to attend services to 

worship God and to learn of His plan for their 

redemption. Men want to know about Jesus 

Christ our Lord, and about what The Bible 

teaches concerning eternal life through Him; 

for a multitude of men in the world today who 

seldom attend church services, believe far more 

in the Bible itself than in many worldly 

churches, where the worship of God is a 

secondary matter, and where the Gospel of the 

resurrection from the dead is never proclaimed. 
166 



Am I Immortal ? 
HOW TO OBTAIN IMMORTAL LIFE. 

There is a God, this world was created by 
Him and is fulfilling its destiny according to 
the laws of its creation; Christ is the Son of 
God, and everlasting life is His gift. The con- 
ditions upon which immortal life may be ob- 
tained have been plainly stated by the Lord 
Jesus Christ, and His apostles. 

In the Parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 
15: 11) our Lord has shown us the way. After 
the son had lived away from his Father so long 
in sin and forget fulness, "he came to himself" 
and said: "I will arise and will go to my 
Father, and wilt say unto him, Father, I have 
sinned against heaven and in thy sight, and am 
no more worthy to be called thy Son/ 9 "And 
he arose and came to his Father" — barefooted 
and in rags. "But while he was yet afar off, 
his Father saw him, and was moved with com- 
passion, and fell on his neck and kissed him. 
And the son said unto him, Father, I have 
sinned against heaven and in thy sight. I am 
no more worthy to be called thy son. But the 
Father said to his servants: Bring forth 
quickly the best robe and put it on him; and put 
a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet: and 



167 



Life 



Am I Immortal ? 

How to bring the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat 
Obtain an( j make merry: for this my son was dead and 
is alive again; he was lost and is found." 

In the Parable of the Lost Sheep in the same 
chapter, the Lord said, "Rejoice with me, for 
I have found my sheep that was lost. I say 
unto you that even so there shall be joy in 
heaven over one sinner that repenteth." 

"Repent ye, for the Kingdom of heaven is at 
hand" (Matt. 3:2). 

"The time is fulfilled and the Kingdom of 
God is at hand; repent ye and believe the Gos- 
pel" (Mark 1: 15). 

"Except ye repent ye shall all in like man- 
ner perish" (Luke 13: 3). 

"Thus it is written, that the Christ should 
suffer and rise from the dead the third day and 
that repentance and remission of sins should 
be preached in His name unto all nations" 
(Luke 24:46). 

"Repent ye therefore and turn again, that 
your sins may be blotted out" (Acts 3: 19). 

"And when they heard these things they held 
their peace, and glorified God, saying, Then to 
the Gentiles also hath God granted repentance 
unto life" (Acts 11: 18). 

"The time of ignorance^ therefore, God over- 

168 



Am I Immortal ? 

looked; but now He commandeth men that they How to 
should all everywhere repent; inasmuch as He Obtain 
hath appointed a day in which He will judge f 
the world in righteousness by the man whom He 
hath ordained; whereof He hath given assur- 
ance to all men, in that He hath raised Him 
from the dead" (Acts 17: 30). 

"Testifying both to Jews and Greeks, re- 
pentance toward God and faith toward our 
Lord Jesus Christ 9 ' (Acts 20:21). 

"For Godly sorrow worketh repentance unto 
salvation, a repentance which bringeth no re- 
gret; but the sorrow of the world worketh 
death" (2 Cor. 7: 10). 

"Or despisest thou the riches of His good- 
ness, and forbearance, and long suffering, not 
knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee 
to repentance" (Rom. 2:4). 

"The Lord is not slack concerning His prom- 
ises, as some men count slackness; but is long 
suffering toward you- ward, not wishing that 
any should perish, but that all should come to 
repentance" (2 Pet. 3:9). 

"Repent ye and be baptized every one of you 
in the name of Jesus Christ unto the remission 
of your sins; and ye shall receive the gift of 
the Holy Spirit" (Acts 2:38). 

169 



Immortal 
Life 



Am I Immortal ? 

How to ''And He said unto them, Go ye into all the 
Obtain WO rld and preach the good tidings to the whole 
creation. He that believeth and is baptized 
shall be saved; but he that disbelieveth shall 
be condemned ,, (Mark 16: 15). 

"For God so loved the world that He gave 
His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth 
on Him should not perish, but have eternal life" 
(John 3: 16). 

"He that believeth on the Son hath eternal 
life; but he that obeyeth not the Son shall not 
see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him" 
(John 3:36). 

"I said therefore unto you that ye shall die 
in your sins; for except ye believe that I am 
He, ye shall die in your sins" (John 8:24). 

"To Him bear all the prophets witness that 
through His name everyone that believeth in 
Him shall receive remission of sins" (Acts 
10:43). 

"And this is His commandment, that we 
should believe in the name of His Son" (1 John 
3:23). 

"And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus 
Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house" 
(Acts 16:31). 

ff Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ, 

is begotten of God" (1 John 5:1). 
170 



Am I Immortal ? 

"These things have I written unto you that How to 
ye may know that ye have eternal life, even Obtain 
unto you that believe on the name of the Son of . - 
God" (1 John 5: 13). 

"Every one therefore who shall confess me 
before men, him will I also confess before my 
Father who is in Heaven' (Matt. 10:32). 

"And I say unto you, Every one who shall 
confess me before men, him shall the Son of 
man also confess before the angels of God" 
(Luke 12:8). 

"If thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus 
as Lord, and shalt believe in thy heart that 
God raised Him from the dead thou shalt be 
saved" (Rom. 10:9). 

"If we confess our sins, He is faithful and 
just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us 
from all unrighteousness" (John 1:9). 

"Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the 
Son of God, God abideth in Him and he in 
God" (1 John 4:15). 

"Beloved let us love one another; for love is 
of God; and everyone that loveth is begotten of 
God; for God is love. Herein was the love of 
God manifested in us, that God hath sent his 
only begotten Son into the world, that we might 
live through Him. Herein is love; not that we 

171 



Life 



Am I Immortal ? 

How to loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His 
Obtain g on j- jj e ^he propitiation for our sins. Be- 
loved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love 
one another" (1 John 4:7). 

"Bring forth therefore fruit worthy of re- 
pentance" (Matt. 3:8). 

"Herein is my Father glorified that ye bear 
much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples" (John 
15:8). 

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, 
peace, long suffering, kindness, goodness, faith- 
fulness, meekness, temperance; against such 
there is no law" (Gal. 5:22). 

"Who His own self bore our sins in His body 
on the tree (cross), that we having died unto 
sin, might live unto righteousness; by whose 
stripes ye were healed. For ye were going 
astray like sheep ; but are now returned unto the 
Shepherd and Bishop of your souls" (1 Pet. 
2:24). 

"But when the Son of man shall come in His 

glory, and all the angels with Him, then shall 

He sit on the throne of His glory: and before 

Him shall be gathered all the nations: and He 

shall separate them one from another, as the 

shepherd separateth the sheep from the goats: 

and He shall set the sheep on His right hand 

but the goats on the left. 
172 



Am I Immortal ? 

"Then shall the King say unto them on His How to 
right hand: Come, ye blessed of my Father, Obtain 
inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the , 
foundation of the world : for I was an hungered, 
and ye gave Me meat: I was thirsty, and ye 
gave Me drink: I was a stranger and ye took 
Me in: naked, and ye clothed Me: I was sick, 
and ye visited Me: I was in prison, and ye came 
unto Me. 

"Then shall the righteous answer Him, say- 
ing, Lord, when saw we Thee an hungered, and 
fed Thee? Or athirst and gave Thee drink? 
And when saw we Thee sick, or in prison, and 
came unto Thee? 

"And the King shall answer and say unto 
them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye 
did it unto one of these My brethren, even these 
least, ye did it unto Me. 

'Then shall He say also unto them on the left 
hand, Depart from Me, ye cursed, into the 
eternal fire which is prepared for the devil and 
his angels: for I was an hungered and ye gave 
Me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave Me no 
drink: I was a stranger, and ye took Me not 
in; naked, and ye clothed Me not; sick and in 
prison, and ye visited Me not. 

"Then shall they also answer, saying, Lord 

173 



Am I Immortal ? 

How to when saw we Thee an hungered, or athirst, or 
Obtain naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister 
unto Thee? Then shall He answer them say- 
ing, Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye did 
it not to one of these least, ye did it not unto 
Me. And these shall go away into eternal pun- 
ishment: but the righteous into eternal life" 
(Matt. 25:31). 

This is God's world, and it is fulfilling its 
destiny according to His holy will. His will is 
prevailing and must prevail in it. It may be 
our privilege to have some part in carrying on 
His beneficent purposes of good in it, because 
He uses human instrumentalities for this pur- 
pose, but His will shall certainly prevail, 
whether we individually have any part in it, 
or not. 

It will be our present and eternal loss if we 
have no part in it. God's Spirit in our con- 
sciences pleads sometimes in vain. We may 
"resist the Spirit" (Acts 7: 51) ; we may "grieve 
the Spirit" (Eph. 4:30); we may "quench the 
Spirit (1 Thes. 5: 19). 

What an inestimable privilege it is to be- 
come a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ, to 
have some part, however small, in His work of 
redemption, and to inherit life immortal through 

Him! 

174 



Am I Immortal ? 

Rev. Joseph Cook, 2). D. — Christianity includes all How to 
ethics; it is a philosophy, it is an art, it is a science, it Obtain 
is a revelation of the nature of things in which there is immortal 
no variableness or shadow of turning. But it is more j .* 
and better — it is a life in God's love and strength per- 
meated everywhere with the doctrine of the new birth 
and atonement and also by the truth that character 
tends to a final permanence, good or bad, and that a 
final permanence can come but once. 

Christianity has for its central thought the personal 
love of a holy, infinite Personality revealed both in 
nature and in revelation as Redeemer and as Lord, and 
of love for that Person as the only possible means of 
purifying the world. Behold in Him a Redeemer, and 
you become glad to take Him as Lord. Look on the 
cross, and it becomes no cross to bear a cross. God as 
an atoning God, God revealed in history as at once 
Saviour and King, God revealed in our Lord and now 
moving the world through the Holy Spirit, and moving 
as both Redeemer and Lord; the acceptance of that 
God first as a Redeemer and then utter affectionate 
submission to Him as Lord, the personal love of infinite 
Perfection as a regenerating passion — this is the beauti- 
ful and awful which has triumphed, and will continue 
to triumph. 



175 



Am I Immortal ? 
A NEGLECTED BOOK. 

If it be true that immortal life is offered to 
man through Jesus Christ our Lord — and we 
have this upon the authority of the Lord Him- 
self, and of His apostles — could anything be 
more calamitous than the utter neglect of the 
Bible so common today among all classes of 
people? Although the Bible is universally 
recognized as the most wonderful book in the 
world, it is shamefully neglected, even by many 
professed Christians. 

Men have forgotten what this Bible in their 
native tongue has cost. It is a blood-bought 
book. Thousands of our forefathers were put 
to death because of it. An apostate Roman 
Catholic church burned them to death at the 
stake for translating it into their native lan- 
guage, for printing it, for circulating it, and 
even for teaching it. Before that time there 
were many priests and monks even who had 
never seen the Bible. 

Pope Paul IV., who made out the first Index 
Expurgatorius, or list of books prohibited by 
the Romish church in 1599^ included in it 
all Bibles printed in modern languages, and 
enumerated forty-eight editions of them. 



176 



Am I Immortal ? 

Men have forgotten the massacres of Vassy A Neglected 
and of St. Bartholomew in France; of many Book 
thousands massacred in Scotland; of Tyndale 
burned at the stake for translating the Bible 
into English, and of Cranmer who revised it; 
and of the great debt of gratitude they owe to 
all these martyrs in having an open Bible now 
in their own language everywhere. 

Men read almost everything about the Bible 
instead of reading the Bible itself, and for 
themselves. Owing to a very general ignorance 
of the Bible, false statements concerning it, 
which abound everywhere, are accepted by 
many as the truth. The perversion of its 
teachings, in consequence of this ignorance, is 
used to sustain many modern superstitions (See 
Appendix). 

Men strangely ignorant of its teachings, 
German and Jewish rationalists especially, 
readily recognized by their names, and Eddy- 
ites, are going up and down the country, ex- 
pressing their unbelief in, or perversion of it, 
and have the temerity to write about it, and 
succeed in having their misconceptions of it 
printed in the newspapers, and occasionally 
even in reputable magazines. 

The Bible has imprinted itself upon the 

world's history in such a way that men of no 
177 



Am I Immortal ? 

A Neglected belief can never efface it. It has transformed 



Book 



the civilized world, and is rapidly transforming 
pagan lands today. It is gradually compelling 
civil and religious liberty everywhere. It 
brought about civil and religious liberty in this 
country, and in British possessions throughout 
the world. 

Countless millions of Christian believers in 
all sorts and conditions of life, after lives of 
unselfishness spent in patient endurance, or in 
happy and even joyous contentment until the 
end, have peacefully pillowed their dying heads 
upon the promises of the Bible. 

Think of that long procession of Christian 
believers covering a period of nineteen hundred 
years since the crucifixion ; and the other equally 
long procession of believers looking forward in 
faith to a coming Redeemer from Adam down. 
And yet throughout the ages they have probably 
always been a minority among men. 

When the Lord Jesus Christ was asked if 
many of mankind would be saved, He replied: 
"Wide is the gate, and broad is the way that 
leadeth to destruction, and many there be that 
enter in thereby. For narrow is the gate, and 
straitened is the way that leadeth unto life, and 
few there be that find it" (Matt. 7: 13). He 



178 



Am I Immortal ? 

said also: "Ye will not come unto Me, that ye A Neglected 
might have life" (John 5 : 40). Book 

Why is it that comparatively few enter into 
the way that leads to life immortal? Why is it 
that Christian believers are in the minority 
today? Ignorance is one reason. Neglect is 
another reason. Unwillingness to make the 
necessary sacrifice is a third. 

Men are utterly ignorant of the Bible even 
in this Christian country of ours; thousands, 
millions of them. O if all Christian believers 
were striving daily to bring it to the knowledge 
of these ignorant ones! 

Men who know something about it are neg- 
lecting to know more. "How shall we escape 
if we neglect so great salvation" (Heb. 2:3). 
Many men intend sometime to read the Bible 
for themselves, but there is such an abundance 
of interesting reading matter in the newspapers 
and magazines, and in books innumerable, and 
so little time to spare for reading these, that 
when an opportunity for reading the Bible does 
present itself, they are at a loss to know where 
to begin. 

The Bible should be read like any other book, 
carefully and thoughtfully and a book at a time. 
Any man can, if he will, read one book of the 

179 






Am I Immortal ? 

A Neglected Bible every Sunday; and if our hope of immor- 

Book tal life after our short existence here, depends 

upon the knowledge obtained from this Word 

of God and put in practice, surely it is infinitely 

worthy of the time and effort required. 

Begin by carefully reading the First Epistle 
of John as an introduction to the subject; then 
read Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, the four 
historical accounts of our Lord's life on earth, 
and realize as you read them that this is a sin- 
gularly truthful and reliable record of a won- 
derful life. Then read on book by book to the 
end. After the New Testament is read in this 
way, it will be a delight to read the Old Testa- 
ment also; and much will be gained in doing so 
by first obtaining a little book, "An Outline of 
the Books of the Bible/' or some similar work, 
giving what is known concerning the times and 
authorship of each book. 

Every reader of this book if he has not a 
New Testament of his own should buy one 
immediately, and if he has one that has been 
neglected should turn to it with new interest, to 
see if its teachings concerning life immortal 
have been properly presented here. They are 
the teachings believed in, and without contro- 
versy, by millions of Christian believers of all 

180 



Am I Immortal ? 

denominations who study the Bible for them- A Neglected 
selves, both ministers and laymen, and who say: Book 
"Search the Scriptures to see if these things 
are so." 

Is it not surprising as well as shameful that 
any intelligent man should spend a whole life- 
time in a Christian country without having read 
the New Testament for himself? 

Rev. J. B. Thomas, D. D. The Historical Element 
in Scripture. — How diversified in authorship, in era, 
in locality, and in form ; compendious statements of 
scientific truth ; genealogies ; state documents like the 
Chronicles; idyls like Ruth; statutes like Leviticus; 
epics like Job ; lyric and didactic verse in Psalms ; con- 
crete earthly wisdom in Proverbs ; pessimistic sighs in 
Ecclesiastes ; commingled history, poetry, and oratory, 
as in the Prophets ; unstudied memoirs in the Gospels ; 
equally artless records of travel and experience in the 
Acts ; Epistles which uncover the social and individual 
heart-history of the time ; and the gorgeous vision of 
the evening, passing through night to morning, at the 
end ! 



181 



Am I Immortal F 

CREEDS. 

The early Christian Church formulated the 
essential teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ and 
His apostles into a simple and brief statement, 
or creed, which was used in having men make 
confession of their faith in Him, and in their 
formal reception into His church. These have 
been greatly amplified by the various denomina- 
tions of Christian believers, but the primitive 
and simple forms showing what the early Chris- 
tians believed and taught, and which are con- 
firmatory of the historical character of the New 
Testament, have been handed down from gen- 
eration to generation. One of the earliest of 
these is the "Creed of Irenaeus." The two 
universal creeds of Christendom are The Apos- 
tles' Creed and the Nicene Creed, and these fol- 
low in their early form. 



Am I Immortal ? 
CREED OF IRENAEUS. 

Irenaeus was born about A. D. 120, and had as pre- 
ceptor the venerable Polycarp of Smyrna, a pupil of 
the Apostle John. He wrote of Polycarp: "What I 
heard from him, that wrote I not on parchment, but in 
my heart, and by the grace of God I constantly bring 
it afresh to mind." This is one of the very earliest 
forms of creed which has been preserved. 

We believe 

in one God the Father Almighty, who 
made heaven and earth, and the sea, and 
all that in them is; 

And in one Christ Jesus the Son of God; 

Who became flesh for our salvation ; 

And His suffering; and His rising from 
the dead; 

And His bodily assumption into heaven; 

And His coming from heaven in the glory 
of the Father to comprehend all things 
under one head, and to execute righteous 
judgment over all. 

And in the Holy Ghost. 

And that Christ shall come from heaven to 
raise up all flesh, and to adjudge the 
impious and unjust to eternal fire, and to 
give to the just and holy immortality and 
eternal glory. Amen. 



183 



Am I Immortal ? 
ANCIENT FORM 

OF 

THE APOSTLES' CREED. 
(Before A. D. 341.) 

I believe in God the Father Almighty; 
And in Jesus Christ his only begotten Son 

our Lord, 

Who was born of the Holy Ghost and 

the Virgin Mary; 
Crucified under Pontius Pilate and buried; 
The third day He arose from the dead ; 
He ascended into heaven and sitteth on the 

right hand of the Father; 
From thence He shall come to judge the 

quick and the dead. 
And in the Holy Ghost; 
The holy Church; 
The forgiveness of sins; 
The resurrection of the body. Amen. 

Note—When because of the American Revolution, the Protest- 
ant Episcopal Church in the United States in Convention in 
Philadelphia in 1785 decided on a separate organization and to 
remodel the Liturgy; among other changes they omitted, "He 
descended into Hell", which was the latest clause that had been 
added to the Apostles' Creed, The Archbishops of Canterbury 
and York, before consenting to ordain bishops for America, 
requested their brethren to restore this clause, on the ground of 
Concord; and this was done at the convention held at Wilming- 
ton, Delaware, October 10, 1786; although at the same time the 
restoration of the Athanasian Creed, also requested, was refused 
on account of its damnatory clauses. (Memoirs of the Protest- 
ant Episcopal Church in the United States, 1836.) 

184 



Am I Immortal ? 

THE NICENE CREED. 
(As enlarged A. D. 381.) 

We believe in one God the Father Almighty ; 
Maker of heaven and earth, and of all 
things visible and invisible. 

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only 
begotten Son of God, begotten of the 
Father before all worlds (aeons), Light 
of Light, very God of very God, begot- 
ten not made, being of one substance 
with the Father; 
by whom all things were made ; 
who for us men and for our salvation, 
came down from heaven and was incar- 
nate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin 
Mary, and was made man; 
and was crucified for us under Pontius 
Pilate, and was buried, and the third day 
He rose again, according to the Scrip- 
tures, and ascended into heaven, and sit- 
teth on the right hand of the Father ; 
from thence He cometh to judge the 
quick and the dead; 
whose kingdom shall have no end. 

And in the Holy Ghost, who is Lord and 
Giver of Life, who proceedeth from the 
Father, who with the Father and the Son 

185 



Am I Immortal ? 

The Nicene together is worshipped and glorified ; 

Creed wno S p a ke by the Prophets. 

And in one holy, catholic and apostolic 
church ; 

we acknowledge one baptism for the 
remission of sins; 

we look for the resurrection of the dead, 
and the life of the world to come. Amen. 



186 



Am I Immortal ? 

THE LORDS SUPPER A PASSOVER 
FEAST. 

THE PASSOVER. 

"And thus shall ye eat it; with your loins 
girded, your shoes on your feet, and your staff 
in your hand; and ye shall eat it in haste: it is 
the Lord's Passover. For I will go through the 
land of Egypt in that night and will smite all 
the first-born in the land of Egypt, both man 
and beast, and against all the gods of Egypt I 
will execute judgments: I am the Lord. And 
the blood shall be to you for a token upon the 
houses where ye are: and when I see the blood 
I will pass over you, and there shall be no 
plague upon you to destroy you, when I smite 
the land of Egypt. And this day shall be unto 
you a memorial, and ye shall keep it a feast 
unto the Lord: Throughout your generations 
ye shall keep it a feast by an ordinance for 
ever" (Ex. 12). 

"Then Moses called for all the elders of 
Israel, and said unto them, Draw out and take 
you lambs according to your families, and kill 
the passover. And ye shall take a bunch of hys- 
sop, and dip it in the blood that is in the basin, 



187 



Am I Immortal ? 

The Lord's and strike the lintel and the two side posts with 
Supper a t ne blood that is in the basin; and none of you 

P3SS0VGT 

shall go out of the door of his house until the 
morning. For the Lord will pass through to 
smite the Egyptians; and when He seeth the 
blood upon the lintel, and on the two side posts, 
the Lord will pass over the door, and will not 
suffer the destroyer to come into your houses to 
smite you. And ye shall observe this thing for 
an ordinance to thee and to thy sons for ever. 
And it shall come to pass, when ye be come to 
the land which the Lord will give you, accord- 
ing as He hath promised, that ye shall keep this 
service. And it shall come to pass when your 
children shall say unto you, what mean ye by 
this service? That ye shall say, It is the sac- 
rifice of the Lord's passover, who passed over 
the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt, 
when He smote the Egyptians, and delivered 
our houses. And the people bowed the head and 
worshipped. And the children of Israel went 
and did so; as the Lord had commanded Moses 
and Aaron, so did they. 

"And it came to pass at midnight, that the 
Lord smote all the first-born in the land of 
Egypt, from the first-born of Pharaoh that sat 
on his throne unto the first-born of the captive 

188 



Feast 



Am I Immortal ? 

that was in the dungeon ; and all the first-born The Lord's 

of cattle. And Pharaoh rose up in the night, Su PP er a 

Passover 
he, and all his servants and all the Egyptians; 

and there was a great cry in Egypt; for there 

was not a house where there was not one dead" 

(Ex. 12). 

THE HOLY COMMUNION. 

"Now on the first day of unleavened bread 
the disciples came to Jesus, saying, Where wilt 
Thou that we make ready for Thee to eat the 
passover? And He said: Go into the city to 
such a man and say unto him, The Master saith, 
My time is at hand; I keep the passover at thy 
house with my disciples. And the disciples did 
as Jesus appointed them; and they made ready 
the passover. Now when even was come, He 
was sitting at meat with the twelve disciples; 
and as they were eating He said, Verily I say 
unto you that one of you shall betray me. And 
they were exceedingly sorrowful, and began to 
say unto Him, every one, Is it I, Lord? And 
He answered and said : He that dipped his hand 
with me in the dish the same shall betray me. 
The Son of man goeth, even as it is written of 
Him: but woe unto that man through whom the 



189 



Am I Immortal ? 

The Lord's Son of man is betrayed ! Good were it for that 
Sapper a man if he had not been born. And Judas, who 
as f° ve * betrayed Him, answered and said, Is it I, 
Rabbi? He saith unto him, Thou hast said. 

"And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, 
and blessed, and brake it; and He gave to His 
disciples, and said, Take, eat, this is my body. 
And He took the cup and gave thanks, and gave 
to them, saying, Drink ye all of it; for this is 
my blood of the covenant, which is shed for 
many unto remission of sins. But I say unto 
you I will not drink henceforth of the fruit of 
the vine until that day when I drink it new with 
you in My Father's kingdom" (Matt. 26:17. 
See also Mark 14; Luke 22; John 13). 

"For I received from the Lord that which also 
I delivered unto you, how that the Lord Jesus 
in the night in which He was betrayed took 
bread ; and when He had given thanks, He brake 
it, and said, This is my body which is broken 
for you: this do in remembrance of me. In like 
manner also the cup, after supper, saying, This 
cup is the new covenant in my blood: this do as 
oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me. For 
as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, 
ye proclaim the Lord's death till He come. 
Wherefore whosoever shall eat the bread or 



190 



Am I Immortal f 

drink the cup of the Lord unworthily, shall be The Lord's 
guilty of the body and of the blood of the Lord. Supper a 
But let a man prove himself, and so let him eat _ . 
of the bread and drink of the cup. For he that 
eateth and drinketh, eateth and drinketh judg- 
ment unto himself, if he discern not the body. 
For this cause many among you are weak and 
sickly, and not a few sleep" (1 Cor. 11 : 23). 

"For our passover also hath been sacrificed, 
even Christ: wherefore let us keep the feast, not 
with the old leaven, neither with the leaven of 
malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened 
bread of sincerity and truth" (1 Cor. 5:8). 

By commemorating the sacrifice of the Lord 
Jesus Christ as our passover, we recognize the 
new covenant according to which we are saved 
from eternal death as the punishment for sin. 
The Lord said on the night when this supper of 
His was established, that His blood which would 
be shed, was "my blood of the covenant which is 
shed for many unto the remission of sins" 
(Matt. 26: 28). "This cup is the new covenant 
in my blood which is poured out for you" (Luke 
22:20). 

"And for this cause He is the mediator of a 
new covenant, that a death having taken place 
for the redemption of the transgressions that 

191 



Am I Immortal ? 

The Lord's were under the first covenant, they that have 

Supper a been called may receive the promise of the eter- 
Passover 

Feast na ^ inheritance* For where a testament is, there 

must of necessity be the death of Him that made 
it" (Heb. 9:15). "So Christ also, having been 
once offered to bear the sins of many, shall ap- 
pear a second time, apart from sin, to them that 
wait for Him, unto salvation" (Heb. Q: 28). 

And so in partaking of the bread and wine of 
the Communion, we "proclaim the Lord's death 
till He come." Until He comes again for us 
at the Resurrection Day. 

In partaking of this sacrament, it should be in 
the spirit of the eleven apostles, who, when the 
Lord said, One of you shall betray me, each 
asked individually, Lord, is it I? 



NOTE:— Many Christian churches have begun to use at the 
Communion Service instead of the Loving Cup of Christian 
Fellowship, individual glasses, degrading the service by putting 
the microbe above its Maker, and losing all thought of the Lov- 
ing Cup of Christian Fellowship and Equality, which even secular 
societies make use of, and which had such deep significance at 
the first observance of it. 



192 



Am I Immortal ? 

A COMMUNION HYMN. 

And now, O Father, mindful of the love 
That bought us, once for all, on Calvary's Tree; 
And having with us Him that pleads above, 
We here present, we here spread forth to Thee 
That only Offering perfect in Thine eyes ; 
The one true, pure, immortal Sacrifice. 

Look Father, look on His anointed face, 
And only look on us as found in Him ; 
Look not on our misusings of Thy grace, 
Our prayer so languid, and our faith so dim; 
For lo ! between our sins and their reward, 
We place the Passion of Thy Son our Lord. 

And then for those, our dearest and our best, 
By this prevailing presence we appeal ; 
O fold them closer to Thy mercy's breast ! 
O do Thine utmost for their soul's true weal ! 
From tainting mischief keep them white and clear, 
And crown Thy gifts with strength to persevere. 

And so we come ; O draw us to Thy feet 
Most patient Saviour, Who canst love us still f 
And by this Food, so awful and so sweet, 
Deliver us from every touch of ill: 
In Thine own service make us glad and free, 
And grant us nevermore to part with Thee. 

The Church Hymnal — Rev. William Bright, 



193 



Am I Immortal ? 
PROPHECY NOW BEING FULFILLED. 

Bible prophecies concerning the Jews "in the 
latter days," are being fulfilled literally at the 
present time. We are living in "the time of the 
Gentiles," which has continued from the cruci- 
fixion of our Lord until now, and during which 
the Jews were to suffer great afflictions and 
tribulations ; while few among them, during such 
persecutions, could be converted to the Christian 
faith. At the end of this Gentile dispensation, 
according to the Scriptures, the Jews were to be 
restored to great prosperity, Palestine was to be 
given back to them, and the nation converted 
to the true faith. Preliminary to that, there was 
to be "an overturning" by them "among all 
nations in which you have been scattered." 

For many weary centuries, the Jews have been 
"oppressed of all nations." Their plagues were 
to have been "of long continuance." (Deut. 
28:59.) They have been denied citizenship, 
despised, persecuted and massacred, so that 
throughout the world their numbers had hardly 
increased. But a great and surprising change 
has taken place within less than a century. 
Within fifty years they have been granted 
citizenship in nearly all countries. They have 



194 



Am I Immortal ? 

been greatly prospered in numbers and in Prophecy 
wealth. They are multiplying exceedingly. Now Being 
They are becoming possessed of great wealth 
everywhere. They are being raised to positions 
of great influence and power. 

Jews are rapidly becoming the great capitalists 
of the world. They are becoming leaders in the 
politics of all countries. They are gaining con- 
trol of newspapers everywhere. There is an 
"overturning' ' going on by them, in business, in 
government, in philosophy, in society, and even 
in religion, 

Spinoza, a Jew, was the father of modern 
Pantheism. Strauss, a Jew, was the founder 
of the destructive rationalistic criticism of the 
Bible, and of disbelief in the supernatural; 
Lasalle, a Jew, was the founder of German 
Socialism; Marx, Bebel and Liebknecht, all 
Jews, were the founders of the International 
Workingmen's Association. The Russian Ni- 
hilists are very largely Jews. And so the ' 'over- 
turning' ' has been going on. 

But there is another and much larger number 
of Jews throughout the world who believe in the 
Old Testament Scriptures; who believe in "the 
God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob ;" who believe 
in "the law and the prophets;" whose faith is 



195 



Am I Immortal ? 

Prophecy being mightily increased and to whom Palestine 
Now Being s hall be restored and the promised blessings 
given. The remarkable spread of Zionism 
among these is in the direction of this fulfill- 
ment. The reorganization of the Turkish gov- 
ernment is in the direction of this fulfillment. 

The literal fulfillment of these prophecies will 
prove to the world anew that the Bible is indeed 
the Word of God, and that not a word of what 
the Lord Jesus Christ uttered shall fail of ful- 
fillment, who said: "Jerusalem shall be trodden 
down of the Gentiles until the times of the Gen- 
tiles be fulfilled 99 (Luke 21:24). In all this, 
devout students of the Bible see the literal ful- 
fillment of prophecy going on before their eyes. 

"And it shall come to pass in that day, saith 
the Lord of hosts, that I will break his yoke 
from off thy neck, and will burst thy bands" 
(Jer. 30:8). 

"And it shall come to pass, that like as I 
have watched over them to pluck up and break 
down, and to overthrow and to destroy and to 
afflict; so will I watch over them to build and 
to plant, saith the Lord" (Jer. 31 : 28). 

"In days to come shall Jacob take root; 
Israel shall blossom and bud; and they shall fill 
the face of the earth with fruit" (Is. 27: 6). 

196 



Am I Immortal ? 

"And they shall build the old wastes, they Prophecy 
shall raise up the former desolations, and they Now Bein g 
shall repair the waste cities, the desolations of 
many generations. And strangers shall stand 
up and feed your flocks, and aliens shall be 
your plowmen and vinedressers. But ye shall 
be named the priests of the Lord ; men shall call 
you the ministers of our God; ye shall eat the 
wealth of the nations, and in their glory shall 
ye boast yourselves" (Is. 61 : 4). 

"Behold at that time I will deal with all 
them that afflict thee; and I will save all that 
halteth, and gather her that was driven away; 
and I will make them a praise and a name, 
whose shame hath been in all the earth. At that 
time I will bring you in, and at that time will I 
gather you; for I will make you a name and a 
praise among all the people of the earth, when 
I bring again your captivity before your eyes, 
saith the Lord" (Zep. 3: 19). 

"And I will deliver them out of all places 
whither they have been scattered in the cloudy 
and dark day. And I will bring them out from 
the peoples, and gather them from the countries, 
and will bring them into their own land; and 
I will feed them upon the mountains of Israel, 
by the water courses, and in all the inhabited 
places of the country" (Ezek. 34: 13). 
197 



Am I Immortal f 



Prophecy 

Now Being 

Fulfilled 



"And the remnant of Jacob shall be in the 
midst of many peoples as dew from the Lord, 
as showers upon the grass; that tarrieth not for 
man, nor waiteth for the sons of men. And the 
remnant of Jacob shall be among the nations, 
in the midst of many peoples, as a lion among 
the beasts of the forest, as a young lion among 
the flocks of sheep; who, if he go through, 
treadeth down and teareth in pieces, and there 
is none to deliver" (Mic. 5:7). 



WHEN WILL HE COME AGAIN? 

Till He come ! O let the words 
Linger on the trembling chords. 
Let the "little while" between 
In its golden light be seen. 
Let us think how heaven and home 
Lie beyond that "Till He come". 

The Old Testament was full of prophecies of 
the -first coming of Christ yet few were expect- 
ing Him when He did come. 

The New Testament is full of prophecies of 
His second coming in glory, and yet compara- 
tively few are expecting Him now. 

We are told by the apostle Peter, that "in the 
last days mockers shall come with mockery say- 
ing, Where is the promise of His coming, for 
from the day that the fathers fell asleep, all 

198 



Am I Immortal ? 

things continue as they were from the beginning When Will 
of the creation" (2 Pet. 3:3). He Come 

Our Lord said, when on earth, 'Tear not, 5 
little flock, for it is the Father's good pleasure 
to give you the kingdom ;" the kingdom of im- 
mortal life. He continues to say that to be- 
lievers today. That "kingdom" will be given 
when He comes again. 

It seems as if the Lord foretold that the num- 
ber waiting for Him would diminish toward the 
end rather than increase, for in speaking of his 
second coming, He said, "Howbeit when the 
Son of man cometh shall He find faith on the 
earth?" (Luke 18:8). 

"But when the Son of man shall come in His 
glory, and all the angels with Him, then shall 
He sit on the throne of His glory: and before 
Him shall be gathered all the nations" (Matt. 
25:31). 

"And then shall they see the Son of man 
coming in clouds with power and great glory. 
And then shall He send forth the angels, and 
shall gather His elect from the four winds, from 
the uttermost part of the earth to the uttermost 
part of heaven" (Mark 13: 26). 

"And then shall they see the Son of man 
coming in a cloud with power and great glory. 

199 



Am I Immortal ? 

When Will But when these things begin to come to pass, 

He Come \ 00 k U p^ an( j lift U p your heads ; because your 
Afiftin? . . 

redemption draweth nigh" (Luke 21:27). 

"And at that time shall Michael (the arch- 
angel) stand up, the great prince who standeth 
for the children of thy people: and there shall 
be a time of trouble, such as was never since 
there was a nation even to that same time: and 
at that time thy people shall be delivered, 
every one that shall be found written in the 
book. And many of them who sleep in the dust 
of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting 
life, and some to shame and everlasting con- 
tempt. And they that be wise shall shine as 
the brightness of the firmament; and they that 
turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever 
and ever. 

"But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and 
seal the book, even to the time of the end: many 
shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be 
increased" (Dan. 12:1-4). 

"And Jesus went out from the temple, and 
was going on His way; and His disciples came 
to Him to show Him the buildings of the tem- 
ple; but He answered and said unto them, See 
ye not all these things? Verily I say unto you, 
There shall not be left here one stone upon 
another, that shall not be thrown down. 
200 



Am I Immortal ? 

"And as He sat on the mount of Olives, the W^ 11 wm 
disciples came upon Him privately, saying, Tell . 

us when shall these things be? and what shall 
be the sign of Thy coming and of the end of the 
world. And Jesus answered and said unto them, 
Take heed that no man lead you astray. For 
many shall come in my name saying, I am the 
Christ; and shall lead many astray. And ye 
shall hear of wars, and rumors of wars: see that 
ye be not troubled: for these things must needs 
come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation 
shall rise against nation, and kingdom against 
kingdom: and there shall be famines and earth- 
quakes in divers places. But all these things 
are the beginning of travail. Then shall they 
deliver you up unto tribulation, and shall kill 
you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for My 
name's sake. And then shall many stumble, and 
shall deliver up one another, and shall hate one 
another. And many false prophets shall arise 
and shall deceive many. And because iniquity 
shall be multiplied, the love of many shall wax 
cold. But he that endureth to the end, the 
same shall be saved. And this good tidings of 
the kingdom shall be preached in the whole 
world for a testimony unto all the nations ; and 
then shall the end come" (Matt. 24: 1-14). 



201 



Am I Immortal ? 

When Will Among the signs to precede His Second Com- 
f 1 ^ ing given by the Lord Jesus Himself, there are 
many which point peculiarly to the time in 
which we are now living. 

"For many shall come in my name, saying, I 
am Christ, and shall lead many astray " There 
never was a time from that of Simon Magus to 
this of Mrs. Eddy and others, when false Christs 
abounded as they do now. 

"And ye shall hear of wars and rumors of 
•wars/' There never was a time before this when 
there were so many rumors of wars which never 
took place. Formerly wars occurred without 
warnings in advance. 

"There shall be famines and earthquakes in 
divers places." The increasing number of de- 
structive earthquakes is a marked characteristic 
of the present time. 

"And many false prophets shall arise and 
shall deceive many/ 9 Is not this surprisingly 
true in all parts of the world, and do not many 
seem ready to follow any false prophet? 

"And because iniquity shall be multiplied 
the love of many shall wax cold, but he that 
endureth to the end the same shall be saved." 
Iniquity does seem to abound greatly, and crime 
seems to be on the increase all over the world. 



Am I Immortal ? 



"Woe for the earth and for the sea: because When Will 
the devil is gone down unto you, having great 



wrath knowing that he hath but a short time" 
(Rev. 12: 12). 

"Men fainting for fear, and for expectation 
of the things that are coming on the world" 
(Luke 21 : 26). The spectre of anarchy is rising 
all over the world in a terrifying manner. 

"And this good tidings of the kingdom shall be 
preached in the whole world; and then shall the 
end come." The good tidings of the Lord Jesus 
Christ have been proclaimed almost everywhere 
throughout the world today for the first time. 

In Daniel's prophecy we are told that "at the 
time of the end, many shall run to and fro on 
the earth and knowledge shall be increased." 
Is not that especially true of the present time? 

It will come suddenly and unexpectedly. "But 
take heed to yourselves lest your hearts be over- 
charged with surfeiting, and drunkenness and 
cares of this life, and that day come upon you 
suddenly as a snare: for so shall it come upon 
all them that dwell on the face of all the earth. 
But watch ye at every season, making supplica- 
tion, that ye may prevail to escape all these 
things that shall come to pass, and to stand 
before the Son of man" (Luke 21 : 34). 



203 



Again? 



Am I Immortal ? 



When Will "Watch therefore for ye know not when the 



He Come 
Again? 



Lord of the house cometh, whether at even, or at 
midnight, or at cocker owing or in the morning: 
lest coming suddenly He find you sleeping (or 
in idleness). And what I say unto you, I say 
unto all, Watch" (Mark 13: 35). 

These are the words of the Lord Jesus Christ 
Himself. If we believe in Christ, or in Chris- 
tianity at all, we must be looking forward to 
this second coming. There are many conditions 
in the Christian church and in the world today 
such as were in the Jewish church and in the 
world when He came the first time. It seems as 
if "the time of the Gentiles" was being brought 
to an end now. 



204 



Am I Immortal ? 
THE RESURRECTION DAY. 

This is the day looked forward to throughout 
the ages, by patriarchs, and prophets, and 
apostles, and all believers. It is the day when 
sin with all its disastrous consequences shall be 
brought to an end. It is the day of "the con- 
summation of all things." It is "that glorious 
day" which all believers should "rejoice" in 
looking forward to. It is the day when the 
Redeemer who came the first time in humiliation, 
will come the second time "in power and great 
glory." 

It is the day for the birth of "a new heaven 
and a new earth in which dwelleth righteous- 
ness." 

Many men say, this world is good enough for 
me, and I don't care to go to heaven; thinking 
of heaven as a place of disembodied spirits. 
That is not what life eternal is to be. We are to 
be resurrected in bodies "like Christ's glorious 
body," and free from all the evils of sin, sick- 
ness, grief and death. 

God gave us this present world in which we 
are living, with all that makes life so enjoy- 
able here; and at the resurrection day He is to 
give us in a new world of existence, a condition 



205 



Am I Immortal ? 

The of happiness beyond even what we can conceive 
Resurrection of W# 

Day 

"Rejoice in that day and leap for joy : for 

behold great is your reward in heaven' ' (Luke 

6:23). 

"But of that day and hour knoweth no one, 
not even the angels of heaven, neither the Son, 
but the Father only" (Mark 13: 32). 

"Verily I say unto you, I will no more drink 
of the fruit of the vine, until that day when I 
drink it new in the kingdom of God 9 ' (Mark 
14:25). 

"For as the lightning, when it lighteneth out 
of the one part under the heaven, shineth unto 
the other part under heaven, so shall the Son of 
man be in His day" (Luke 17: 24). 

"Likewise, even as it came to pass in the days 
of Lot; they ate, they drank, they bought, they 
sold, they planted, they builded, but in the day 
that Lot went out from Sodom, it rained fire 
and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them 
all : after the same manner shall it be in the 
day that the Son of man is revealed" (Luke 
17:28). 

"But take heed to yourselves, lest haply your 
heart be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunk- 
enness, and cares of this life, and that day come 



206 



Am I Immortal ? 



upon you suddenly as a snare: for so shall it The 
come upon all them that dwell on the face of l 



all the earth" (Luke 21 : 34). 

'Tor this is the will of my Father, that every- 
one that beholdeth the Son, and believeth on 
Him, shall have eternal life; and I will raise 
him up at the last day" (John 6: 40). 

"No man can come to me, except the Father 
who sent me, draw him; and I will raise him up 
at the last day" (John 6: 44). 

"Martha said unto Him, I know that he shall 
rise again in the resurrection at the last day" 
(John 11:24). 

"The sun shall be turned into darkness, and 
the moon into blood, before the day of the Lord 
come, that great and notable day. And it shall 
be that whosoever shall call on the name of the 
Lord shall be saved" (Acts 2: 20). 

"In the day when God shall judge the secrets 
of men, according to my good tidings, by Jesus 
Christ" (Rom. 2: 16). 

"Holding forth the word of life, that I may 
have whereof to glory in the day of Christ" 
(Phil. 2:16). 

"For our citizenship is in heaven; from 
whence also we wait for a Saviour, the Lord 
Jesus Christ: who shall fashion anew the body 



207 



Day 



Am I Immortal ? 

™ e of our humiliation, that it may be conformed 
to the body of His glory, according to the 
working whereby He is able even to subject 
all things unto Himself' (Phil. 3: 20). 

"Until the appearing of our Lord Jesus 
Christ: which in its own time He shall shew, 
who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King 
of kings, and Lord of lords; who only hath im- 
mortality, dwelling in light unapproachable; 
whom no man hath seen or can see: to whom 
be honor and power eternal. Amen" (2 Tim. 
6:15). 

"Waiting for the revelation of our Lord Jesus 
Christ; Who shall also confirm you unto the end, 
that ye may be unreprovable in the day of our 
Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Cor. 1: 8). 

"And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, in 
whom ye were sealed unto the day of redemp- 
tion" (Eph. 4:30). 

"That ye may be sincere and void of offence 
until the day of Christ" (Phil. 1: 10). 

"Among whom ye are seen as lights in the 
world, holding forth the word of life; that I 
may have whereof to glory in the day of Christ" 
(Phil. 2:16). 

"For yourselves know perfectly that the day 
of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night" 
(1 Thes. 5:2). 

208 



Am I Immortal ? 

"But let us, since we are of the day, be sober, The 
putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and esurrec 10n 
for a helmet the hope of salvation" (1 Thes. 
5:8). 

"At the revelation of the Lord Jesus from 
heaven with the angels of His power in flaming 
fire, rendering vengeance to them that know 
not God, and to them that obey not the gospel 
of our Lord Jesus: who shall suffer punishment, 
even eternal destruction from the face of the 
Lord and from the glory of His might when He 
shall come to be glorified in His saints, and to 
be marvelled at in all them that believed (be- 
cause testimony unto you was believed) in that 
day" (2 Thes. 1:7). 

"For I know whom I have believed, and I am 
persuaded that He is able to guard that which 
I have committed unto Him against that day 9 ' 
(2 Tim. 1: 12). 

"The Lord grant unto him to find mercy of 
the Lord in that day" (2 Tim. 1: 18). 

"Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown 
of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous 
judge, shall give to me at that day: and not only 
to me but to all them that have loved His 
appearing" (2 Tim. 4:8). 

"Looking for the blessed hope and appearing 

209 



Am I Immortal ? 



The of the glory of our great God and Saviour Jesus 
Resurrection christ » (m g. 1S)- 



Day 



"Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves 
together, as the custom of some is, but exhorting 
one another; and so much the more, as ye see 
the day drawing nigh" (Heb. 10: 25). 

"And when the chief Shepherd is manifested, 
ye shall receive the crown of glory that fadeth 
not away" (1 Pet. 5:4). 

"Seeing that these things are all thus to be 
dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to 
be in all holy living and godliness, looking for 
and earnestly desiring the day of God, by reason 
of which the heavens being on fire shall be dis- 
solved, and the elements shall melt with fervent 
heat? But, according to His promise, we look 
for new heavens and a new earth, wherein 
dwelleth righteousness" (2 Pet. 3: 11). 

As we pray "Thy kingdom come" in the 
Lord's Prayer, we should always remember that 
that kingdom is the kingdom of immortal life 
which the Lord Jesus Christ has promised to 
give to all believers at the Resurrection Day. 



210 



Am I Immortal ? 

THE JUDGMENT DAY. 

There is no place where earth's sorrows 
Are more felt than up in heaven ; 
There is no place where earth's failings 
Have such kindly judgment given. 

For the love of God is broader 
Than the measure of man's mind; 
And the heart of the Eternal 
Is most wonderfully kind. 

The judgment of "the great day" will not be 
man's judgment. Man's judgment of other men 
is always faulty ; generally too severe, and some- 
times, but seldom, too lenient. Christ's judg- 
ment will be unerring. There can be no con- 
cealment from Him. He knows all the circum- 
stances affecting conduct. He knows all the 
underlying motives. He knows if we have been 
thoughtless, and blind, and ignorant. He knows 
if we have been willful, and have sinned against 
light and knowledge. 

God has so revealed Himself to all men that 
every man in some way will either have accepted 
or rejected Him. "He is the true light that 
lighteth every man coming into the world" — 
the light of conscience. (John 1:9-) 

The apostle Paul in his great Epistle to the 
Romans, wrote: "For not the hearers of the law 



211 



Am I Immortal ? 

^ he are just before God, but the doers of the law 
ju gmen gj^jj ^ e justified: for when the Gentiles which 
have no law do by nature the things of the law, 
these, having no law, are a law unto themselves ; 
in that they show the work of the law written 
in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness 
therewith, and their thoughts one with another 
accusing or else excusing them: in the day when 
God shall judge the secrets of men according to 
my gospel, by Jesus Christ" (Rom. 2: 14). This 
applies to all to whom the good tidings of resur- 
rection through Jesus Christ our Lord have 
never been presented. 

When the apostle Peter was sent for by Cor- 
nelius, a Roman centurion, he was constrained 
to say through the vision he saw before going: 
"Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter 
of persons: but in every nation he that feareth 
Him and worketh righteousness is acceptable 
to Him" (Acts 10:34). 

"God so loved the world that He gave His 
only begotten Son that whosoever believeth on 
Him should not perish but have eternal life" 
(John 3: 16). 

As Browning wrote: "All's love, but all's 
law" The law of the kingdom of God — of life 
immortal — is, that in order to have eternal life 






Am I Immortal ? 

bestowed upon us, we must believe on the Lord The 

Jesus Christ as the Son of God and Saviour •* ^ ne 

Day 
of sinners, and obey Him. Then we shall not 

be judged and condemned to everlasting death 

at the judgment day, but shall be forgiven and 

restored to life immortal, because He paid the 

penalty for our sins on the cross. It needed an 

infinite Redeemer to pay this penalty. "He 

came into the world and the world was made by 

Him, and the world knew Him not. He came 

unto His own and they that were His own 

received Him not. But as many as received Him 

to them gave He the right to become children of 

God, even to them that believe on His name" 

(John 1:10). 

Nowhere in the Bible is this salvation more 

clearly proclaimed than in the Epistle to the 

Romans. "But now apart from the law a 

righteousness of God hath been manifested, 

being witnessed by the law and prophets; even 

the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus 

Christ unto all them that believe; for there is no 

distinction, for all have sinned and fallen short 

of the glory of God; being justified freely by 

His grace, through the redemption that is in 

Christ Jesus: whom God set forth to be a 

propitiation through faith, by His blood ^to show 



213 



Judgment 
Day 



Am I Immortal ? 

^ ne His righteousness because of the passing over of 






the sins done aforetime, in the forbearance of 
God" (Rom. 3:21). 

"Or despisest thou the richness of His good- 
ness, and forbearance and long suffering, not 
knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee 
to repentance? But after thy hardness and 
impenitent heart treasureth up for thyself wrath 
in the day of wrath and revelation of the 
righteous judgment of God; who will render to 
every man according to his works: to them that 
by patience in well-doing seek for glory and 
honor and incorruption, eternal life: but unto 
them that are factious, and obey not the truth, 
but obey unrighteousness, shall be wrath and 
indignation, tribulation and anguish, upon every 
soul of man that worketh evil, of the Jew first, 
and also of the Greek, for there is no respect of 
persons with God" (Rom. 2:4). 

All shall be judged alike: King or pauper; 
Dives or Lazarus. Kings shall have eternal life 
bestowed upon them, and paupers shall be extin- 
guished. Again Kings shall forfeit immortality 
and paupers shall inherit it through Jesus Christ 
our Lord. 

The judgment will be perfectly just, and O 
so much more lenient than man's judgment of 



214 



Am I Immortal ? 

his fellowmen! But it will probably often be The 
far more severe than our own judgment of our- J u ^ 
selves. "If any man sin we have an Advocate 
with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous : and 
He is the propitiation for our sins; and not for 
ours only but also for the whole world" (1 
John 2: 1). 

"Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, 
Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; 
but he that doeth the will of my Father who is 
in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, 
Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy by Thy name 
and by Thy name cast out demons, and by Thy 
name do many mighty works? And then will I 
profess unto them, I never knew you: depart 
from me, ye that work iniquity" (Matt. 7: 22). 

"He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my 
sayings, hath one that judgeth him: the word 
that I spake shall judge him in the last day" 
(John 12:48). 

"And I say unto you, that every idle word 
that men shall speak, they shall give account 
thereof in the day of judgment. For by thy 
words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words 
thou shalt be condemned" (Matt. 12:36). 

"The men of Nineveh shall stand up in the 
judgment with this generation and shall con- 



215 



Am I Immortal ? 

The demn it: for they repented at the preaching of 
** ^L Jonah; and behold a greater than Jonah is here" 
ay (Matt. 12:41). 

"Woe unto thee Chorazin! Woe unto thee 
Bethsaida ! For if the mighty works had been 
done in Tyre and Sidon, which were done in 
you, they would have repented long ago, sitting 
in sackcloth and ashes. Howbeit it shall be 
more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the judg- 
ment than for you" (Luke 10: 13). 

"For neither doth the Father judge any man, 
but He hath given all judgment unto the Son; 
that all may honor the Son, even as they honor 
the Father" (John 5:22). 

"For as the Father hath life in himself, even 
so gave He to the Son also to have life in Him- 
self: and He gave Him authority to execute 
judgment, because He is the Son of man" (John 
5:27). 

"And reckonest thou this, O man, who judgest 
them that practice such things, that thou shalt 
escape the judgment of God?" (Rom. 2:3). 

"But thou, why dost thou judge thy brother? 
Or thou again, why dost thou set at nought thy 
brother? For we shall all stand before the 
judgment-seat of God" (Rom. 14: 10). 

"For we must all be made manifest before 



216 



Am I Immortal ? 

the judgment-seat of Christ; that each one may xhe 
receive the things done in the body, according Judgment 
to what he hath done, whether it be good or Day 
bad" (2 Cor. 5: 10). 

"Some men's sins are evident, going before 
into judgment; and some men also they follow 
after. In like manner also there are good works 
that are evident; and such as are otherwise 
cannot be hid" (1 Tim. 5: 24). 

"And inasmuch as it is appointed unto men 
once to die, and after this cometh judgment; so 
Christ, also, having once been offered to bear 
the sins of many, shall appear a second time, 
apart from sin to them that wait for Him, unto 
salvation" (Heb. 9:27). 

"But the heavens that now are, and the earth, 
by the same word have been stored up for fire, 
being reserved against the day of judgment and 
destruction of ungodly men" (2 Pet. 3:7). 

"Herein is love made perfect with us, that we 
may have boldness in the day of judgment; be- 
cause as He is, even so are we in this world" 
(1 John 4: 17). 

"Behold the Lord cometh, with ten thousand 
of His holy ones, to execute judgment upon all, 
and to convict all the ungodly of all their works 
of ungodliness which they have ungodly wrought, 



217 



Am I Immortal ? 

The and of all the hard things which ungodly sinners 
Judgment ] lave spo ken against Him" (Jude 15). 

"Fear God and give Him glory; for the hour 
of His judgment is come: and worship Him that 
made the heaven and the earth and sea and 
fountains of waters" (Rev. 14: 7). 

"And I heard the altar saying, Yea, O Lord 
God, the Almighty, true and righteous are Thy 
judgments" (Rev. 16: 7). 



Rev. Richard Roberts; Judgment and Justification; 
Contemporary Review, April 1910. — The total moral 
demand of God upon us (let it be repeated) as it is em- 
bodied in the cross is far more exacting than any other 
statement of it has ever been. And if it was impossible 
to gain peace with God by the fulfillment of the Law, 
how much less possible is it to satisfy the new require- 
ments ? But just because once the total moral demand 
of God upon man was satisfied in man, He no longer 
asks that we should attain to those heights before 
giving us His peace . The cross is to be our ideal and 
our liability forever; but because the ideal was once 
fully realized in the sinless obedience of Jesus, human- 
ity was raised to another plane in which new conditions 
obtain and new principles operate. It is true that the 
moral demands, far from being relaxed, become more 
stringent upon this new plane; but because they have 
been once satisfied fully, God does not wait until we 
also have satisfied them before setting us at peace with 
Himself. What He does, — this is the New Testament 
view, — is to consider us and to declare us here and 
now, — on certain conditions, — wholly what we are in 
process of becoming. He accounts us righteous what 



218 



Am I Immortal ? 

time we are only growing into that holy love which is The 

the perfect righteousness. It treats us as though we Judgment 

had arrived, while we are yet only on the way. D a y 

On certain conditions. What are these? Jesus, by 
His "obedience unto death," has become the focus of 
a new universe, the leader of a new phase of human 
life. The condition of our new relation to God and 
God's new attitude to us is that we 'definitely place 
ourselves in this universe of which Jesus is the center, — 
that is, to use the great Pauline word, "in Christ." 

The act by which we relate ourselves to Jesus is Faith ; 
and the process by which our new relation to God 
is established is called in the New Testament Justifica- 
tion. It is superfluous to point out that this word, 
which is of forensic antecedents, means not "making 
one righteous", but "declaring or accounting one 
righteous." In Christ, God gives this as a gift, where- 
as out of Christ He demands it as an attainment. 
Under cover, as it were, of the perfect righteousness of 
the man Christ Jesus, in His universe, it is the reign of 
grace and faith. But faith is more than an emotional 
act of trust, still more than an intellectual act of belief. 
It is an act which involves the whole of life, and an act 
with a moral content. It is the disposition of the 
entire life Christward. It is the resolute setting of our 
whole being toward Christ. It is an orientation of the 
whole soul. It is, in a word, an obedience. And by 
the suffering of death Jesus "has become the author of 
eternal salvation to all who obey Him." 



219 



Am I Immortal f 
THE END. 

"Then cometh the end, when He shall deliver 
up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when 
He shall have abolished all rule and all authority 
and power. For He must reign until He hath 
put all his enemies under His feet. The last 
enemy that shall be abolished is death' 9 (1 Cor. 
15:24). 

"And I heard a great voice in heaven, saying, 
Now is come the salvation, and the power, and 
the kingdom of our God, and the authority of 
His Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is 
cast down, who accuseth them before our God 
day and night" (Rev. 12: 10). 

"And I saw a great white throne, and Him 
that sat upon it, from whose face the earth and 
heaven fled away; and there was found no place 
for them. And I saw the dead, the great and 
the small standing before the throne; and books 
were opened; and another book was opened 
which is the book of life; and the dead were 
judged out of the things which were written in 
the books, according to their works. 

"And the sea gave up the dead which were in 
it; and death and Hades (the grave) gave up 
the dead which were in them: and they were 
judged every man according to their works. 
220 



Am I Immortal ? 

"And death and Hades were cast into the lake The End 
of fire. And if any was not found written in 
the book of life, he was cast into the lake of fire" 
(Rev. 20: 11-15). 

"And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: 
for the first heaven and the first earth are passed 
away; and the sea is no more. And I saw the 
holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out 
of heaven from God, made ready as a bride 
adorned for her husband. 

"And I heard a great voice out of the throne 
saying, Behold the tabernacle of God is with 
men, and He shall dwell with them, and they 
shall be His peoples, and God himself shall be 
with them, and be their God : and He shall wipe 
away every tear from their eyes ; and death shall 
be no more; neither shall there be mourning, nor 
crying, nor pain any more: the first things are 
passed away. And He that sitteth on the throne 
said, Behold I make all things new. 

"And He said unto me, They are come to 
pass. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the 
beginning and the end. I will give unto him 
that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life 
freely. He that overcometh shall inherit these 
things; and I will be his God, and he shall be 
My son. 



Am I Immortal ? 

Xhe End "But for the fearful, and unbelieving, and 
abominable, and murderers, and fornicators, and 
sorcerers, and idolators, and all liars, their part 
shall be in the lake that burneth with fire and 
brimstone; which is the second death (Rev. 
21: 1-8). 

"And He showed me a river of water of life, 
bright as crystal, proceeding out of the throne 
of God and of the lamb, in the midst of the 
streets thereof. And on this side of the river 
and on that was the tree of life, bearing twelve 
manner of fruits, yielding its fruit every month: 
and the leaves of the tree were for the healing 
of the nations. 

"And there shall be no curse anymore: and 
the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be 
therein: and His servants shall do Him service; 
and they shall see His face; and His name shall 
be on their foreheads. 

"And there shall be night no more; and 
they need no light of lamp, neither light of sun ; 
% for the Lord shall give them light; and they 
shall reign for ever and ever. 

"And He said unto me, These words are faith- 
ful and true : and the Lord, the God of the spirits 
of the prophets, sent His angel to show unto His 
servants the things which must shortly come to 



222 



Am I Immortal ? 

pass. And, Behold, I come quickly. Blessed The End 
is he that keepeth the words of the prophecy of 
this book. 

"And I John am he that heard and saw these 
things. And when I heard and saw, I fell down 
before the feet of the angel which showed me 
these things. And he saith unto me, See thou do 
it not: I am a fellowservant with thee and with 
thy brethren the prophets, and with them which 
keep the words of this book: worship God. 

"And he said unto me, Seal not up the words 
of the prophecy of this book; for the time is at 
hand. He that is unrighteous, let him do un- 
righteousness still; and he that is filthy, let him 
be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let 
him do righteousness still: and he that is holy, 
let him be made holy still. 

"Behold I come quickly; and my reward is 
with me, to render to each man according as his 
work is. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the 
first and the last, the beginning and the end. 
Blessed are they that wash their robes, that they 
may have the right to come to the tree of life, 
and may enter in by the gates into the city. 
Without are the dogs, and the sorcerers, and the 
fornicators, and the murderers, and the idolators, 
and everyone that loveth and maketh a lie. 



Am I Immortal ? 

The End "I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto 
you these things for the churches. I am the root 
and the offspring of David, the bright, the 
morning star. 

"And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And 
he that heareth, let him say, Come. And he that 
is athirst let him come : he that will, let him take 
the water of life freely. 

"He which testifieth these things saith, Yea, 
I come quickly. Amen : Come, Lord Jesus. The 
grace of the Lord Jesus be with the saints. 
Amen" (Rev. 22). 

The End. 



Appendix 



MODERN SUPERSTITIONS 



Appendix 
MODERN SUPERSTITIONS. 

Evolution as a substitute for a Creator has 
already been referred to as a modern super- 
stition in the chapter on Creation. 

Other superstitions believed in now by many 
are singularly like those which Christianity had 
to contend with in the early centuries of the 
Christian era; such as a combination of Unitar- 
ianism with heathen philosophy; Ebionism, like 
the speculative pantheistic rationalism so much 
in vogue among German philosophers; a pagan- 
ized Judaism, and Gnosticism. 

At the present time in this country, Evolu- 
tion, Rationalism, Pantheism, Spiritualism, and 
Eddyism are offered in opposition to Chris- 
tianity, and to all moral responsibility to God 
as Creator, Heavenly Father and Redeemer. 

Most of these are old forms of paganism re- 
vived, and to some of them a veneering of Chris- 
tian ethics has been added in an appeal to the 
religious instincts of mankind. 

RATIONALISM. 

Rationalism is a belief held mainly by the 
ignorant, and is usually characterized by a want 
of thought. It is atheistic in character, and is 

227 



Appendix 

Rationalism the negation of all religion. It is limited very 
much to those who are unable or unwilling to 
think. 

A rationalist will say that he does not believe 
in anything that he cannot understand, or that 
is not in accordance with the known laws of this 
material world. If that were true, how very cir- 
cumscribed his knowledge would be! Can he 
understand the law of gravitation? Or even 
among the most ordinary experiences of life, can 
he, in looking at objects around him, understand 
how the visual image is communicated to his 
consciousness ? 

A rationalist's ideas seldom rise above that of 
a mere animal existence. Whittier in speaking 
of such, said: 

"Thyself thy own dark jail/* 

Rationalists as a rule are very superstitious. 
, They believe in all kinds of "luck." They are 
quite ready to patronize spiritualists, clairvoy- 
ants, and all such humbugs. They are ready to 
discourse freely, and sometimes even learnedly 
on what they do not believe, but when asked very 
pertinently what they do believe, have very little 
to say. Rationalists take themselves too seriously. 
As a factor in the thought of the world, they 
are almost negligible. 

928 



Appendix 
PANTHEISM. 

Pantheism is a belief that God is in every- 
thing. It is held in many forms from idolatry, 
and Eddyism, up to the higher spiritual form 
that everything which exists is a manifestation 
of God. 

In its lowest form it has been held by many 
primitive peoples. The American Indian be- 
lieved in a god of the wind, and a god of the 
waters, and in gods of all the elements of nature. 

Pantheism is a groping after God through 
the things which He has made. In its highest 
form it has a distinctly intellectual basis and 
has much in common with Christianity through 
the belief in the imminence of God in everything; 
but it falls far short of the Christian conception 
that God is also above and "over all things 
which He has made/' and is our Creator, Heav- 
enly Father and Redeemer. 

Spinoza, a Dutch Jew, is recognized as the 
father of modern pantheism, which he taught in 
a highly spiritual form. It is acceptable to 
unbelievers in Judaism who have fallen away 
from their old historic faith, and is an intellec- 
tual substitute for a paganized Christianity to 
many who have not been brought to a knowledge 

229 



Appendix 

Pantheism of the Scriptures, have an erroneous idea of the 
Christian religion, and seek to satisfy through 
pantheism their natural religious cravings. God 
can be worshipped in nature, without reaching 
up to the God of revelation, but pantheism 
always tends in the end toward atheism. 

To teach that God is all and in everything, 
removes the distinction between good and evil; 
between pure and impure; between animal and 
spiritual. What pantheism leads to is well 
evidenced by the condition of the Hindus in 
India and the ruin and decay of their country. 

A Pantheist does not believe in a Creator 
separate from His creation. He believes that 
everything reveals attributes of God, and that 
God is identical with the sum total of Being. 
To him God is not personal, but impersonal. 
He does not believe in a Supreme Being as One 
to pray to, believe in, or obey. Pantheism has 
been spreading in many forms among those who 
will not accept Christ as the Son of God and 
Saviour of sinners, nor subject themselves to 
His authority. 

The rationalistic philosophy of the present 
day, while having a pantheistic basis, is drifting 
into atheism. It assumes the impossibility of 
the miraculous as fundamental, and consequently 
rejects Christ's Divinity. 
230 



Appendix 

A pantheistic disbelief in the supernatural, or Pantheism 
in any miraculous interference with the usual 
order of nature is one of the fruits of Spinoza's 
teachings. In this respect it holds a good deal 
in common with rationalism. 

SPIRITUALISM. 

Spiritualism is another form of superstition 
which has always been believed in to a large 
extent by the ignorant and credulous. It is 
natural for those who believe in a separation of 
body and spirit at death, and in a world of 
spirits, to wish that there might be a means of 
communicating with the spirits of the departed. 
This desire is taken advantage of to delude many 
into believing in such communications. 

If the dead are asleep in the dust of the earth 
there can be no communication from them. If 
men after death became disembodied spirits, and 
if communication with them in that state were 
possible, we would long ago have had a great 
deal of interesting information about it, and 
would have talked with them as friend talks with 
friend. 

These communications would have been on a 
level with their intelligence and intellectual at- 



Appendix 

Spiritualism tainments before death, and would be made to 
those with whom they had been most intimately 
associated here. 

The absurdity of the pretended communica- 
tions is enough in itself to stamp them as fraudu- 
lent beyond a doubt. They are always of the 
most trivial and insignificant character, and in- 
dicate no higher degree of intelligence than that 
of the "medium." 

And the method of conveying them is equally 
absurd. Why should it be necessary for these 
"seances" to be held in a dark room? Why 
should it be necessary for people to sit in a 
circle and to hold each others hands, except to 
prevent them from seizing the medium and ex- 
posing the fraud, which has been done so often? 
Why should messages come through a mega- 
phone, except to disguise the medium's voice ? 

The rappings, and shaking of a tambourine, 
and blowing of a trumpet in the dark are all for 
the purpose of terrifying credulous people into 
believing there is something supernatural about 
it. Real communications from real spirits would 
not require all this foolish legerdemain. 
Although so often exposed, people continue to 
believe in these performances, as they do in a 
"gold brick." 



Appendix 

Nothing has ever been done by any "medium" Spiritualism 
anywhere that cannot be explained by fraud, or 
hypnotism, or telepathy, or hallucination. Only 
the most credulous can be humbugged in this 
way. Spiritualism is not a religion at all, but an 
old superstition and fraud. When people really 
believe in it they are either easily humbugged, 
or mentally unbalanced. 

EDDYISM. 

Eddyism is another modern superstition be- 
lieved in by many. There is nothing new 
about it that is true in either teaching or in 
practice. It should not be considered as a 
religion at all, but merely as a shrewdly or- 
ganized and profitable business, conducted on the 
lines of ' 'suggestion," like that of all patent 
medicines. Healing by "suggestion" has been 
practiced from time immemorial, and success- 
fully too; even by the Indian medicine men, or 
through African fetiches. What mother is there 
who, when her child has been slightly hurt, has 
not kissed the place to make it well ! 

In Eddyism healing by "suggestion" has been 
associated with a crude form of pantheism and 
a revival of old pagan gnosticism; and with 



233 



Appendix 

Eddyism these has been craftily combined a veneering of 
Christian ethics. There is nothing Christian or 
scientific about the whole business, and as a 
counterfeit Christianity it substitutes the irra- 
tional for the supernatural. 

In the well-authenticated history of Mrs. 
Eddy by Miss Milmine and others, we learn of 
her early life and lack of education; her three 
marriages and divorce; her eccentricities, to say 
the least; her experiences as a spiritualist and 
clairvoyant; and her life of deception generally. 
We learn how she was cured of a nervous ail- 
ment through "suggestion" by Phineas Quimby, 
practiced his hypnotic method of healing under 
him quite successfully, and after his death 
lauded him to the skies. 

Mrs. Eddy learned much that was valuable 
from Quimby in the healing of nervous ailments 
by suggestion or hypnotism, by firmly asserting 
the power of the mind over the body, by declar- 
ing ailments to be imaginary, and by locating 
the source of diseases in the mind instead of in 
the body. Although in her book she has cov- 
ered this up by many falsities and superstitions, 
it remains the one kernel of value in the bushel 
of chaff in Eddyism, and is all that keeps it 
alive. Dr. Quimby did not attempt to set it up 



234 



Appendix 

as a religion. He seems to have been a modest Bddyism 
gentleman and a clear thinker — in marked con- 
trast with his successor. 

After Quimby's death Mrs. Eddy seems to 
have conceived the idea of increasing and ex- 
tending her business in the guise of a counter- 
feit religion, with herself as high priestess, and 
of calling it "Christian Science" — the name 
which Quimby had given to his method of heal- 
ing by suggestion. 

Having had no true conception of the fun- 
damentals of the Christian religion, she seems 
to have had no scruples about putting herself 
on a level with the Lord Jesus Christ, and 
boldly launching her business with this enlarged 
scope in Christ's name; claiming that Quimby's 
method of healing was a divine revelation to 
her. So successful was she in this deception 
that before very long she succeeded in getting 
credulous people by the thousand at several 
hundred dollars each, to learn her methods of 
"Divine Healing/' which she claimed had been 
"revealed" to her; and they were all put under 
obligation not to teach it to anyone else. 

Where people have been relieved of ailments 
by "suggestion," they fall an easy prey to Mrs. 
Eddy's claim of "revelation" upon which she 



235 



Appendix 

Eddyism founded her counterfeit religion; as she knew 
they would. Most of them are ignorant of the 
fact that she has revived in her book old and 
abandoned superstitions which were offered in 
opposition to Christianity in the first and second 
centuries of the Christian era. Besides this, she 
has employed people of ability for many years 
to give a gloss of Christian ethics to the whole 
mixture ; so that as Tennyson said : 

A lie that is all a lie 

May be met and fought with outright, 

But a lie that is half the truth 

Is a harder matter to fight. 

With large sums of money obtained by teach- 
ing Quimby's method of healing through hyp- 
notic suggestion, she had no difficulty in adver- 
tising her business extensively, got up a book 
containing a mixture of heathen philosophy and 
paganized Christianity, denying all the facts of 
existence and of revelation, and using an abun- 
dance of pious phrases to cover up her avarice 
and selfishness. No crazier article has ever 
appeared in print, either in its ideas or misuse 
of the English language, than her fantastic 
"Interpretation of the Book of Genesis" in this 
book of hers. 

She has conducted her business on the lines 



236 



Appendix 

of "suggestion" from beginning to end. On the Eddyism 
wall on one side of their reading desks she has 
painted a saying of Jesus Christ, and on the 
other a saying of Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy, as 
she calls herself, thus "suggesting" her equality 
with the Son of God. In her advertising "ser- 
vice," which is shamefully sacrilegious, she has 
the Lord's Prayer read sentence by sentence 
together with a substitute of hers for it, which 
is required to be publicly advertised in every 
meeting as "an interpretation of it by Mrs. 
Mary Baker G. Eddy," thus "suggesting" her- 
self as being on a level with or even superior 
to the Saviour. And this is the incoherent sub- 
stitute which she offers for that holy prayer: 

"Our Father-Mother God, all-harmonious, 

Adorable One. 

Thy kingdom is come; Thou art ever-present. 

Enable us to know, — as in heaven, so on 
earth, — 

God is omnipotent, supreme. 

Give us grace for today; feed the famished 
affections ; 

And Love is reflected in love; 

And God leadeth us not into temptation, but 
delivereth us from sin, disease and death. 

For God is infinite, all-power, all Life, Truth, 
Love, over all and All." 

237 



Appendix 

Eddyism She has one "reader" on the platform read 
detached verses from the Bible, while another 
"reader" reads alternately passages from her 
book; in this way craftily "suggesting" the 
equality of her book with the Word of God. 
She has even had the audacity in these adver- 
tising meetings of hers to have a parody on the 
Lord's supper without bread, or wine, or any 
reference to a Redeemer, and has had the im- 
pudence to have her advertising book bound in 
the same form as the Bible. Teaching that 
there is no personality in Deity, and so no One 
to pray to, she has them in her advertising ser- 
vices go through the form of "silent prayer," 
because no oral prayer could be offered that 
would not be in flat contradiction of the book 
in which she advertises herself. 

Owing to her illiteracy, Mrs. Eddy's first book 
was a mixture of falsities and unintelligible 
ideas. She employed Rev. James H. Wiggin, an 
Unitarian minister of unusual literary attain- 
ments, to rewrite the book for her. He put it 
into intelligible English so far as she would per- 
mit — for intentional obscurity had been used to 
impress the credulous, — and he also corrected its 
faulty spelling, misuse of words and incorrect 
references. He became her "literary adviser," 



238 



Appendix 

saw her book through several editions and edited Eddyism 
her advertising publications. After this intimate 
association with Mrs. Eddy for four years, on 
Dec. 14, 1889, he wrote of her to an old college 
friend as follows (See life of Mrs. Eddy by Miss 
Milmine) : 

"Christian Science on its theological side is 
an ignorant revival of one form of gnosticism, 
that Jesus is to be distinguished from Christ 
and that His earthly appearance was phantas- 
mal, not real and fleshly. * * * On its moral 
side it involves what must follow from the doc- 
trine that reality is a dream, and that if a thing 
is right in thought, why, right it is, and that sin 
is non-existent because God can behold no evil! 
* * * Physically, it leads people to trust all 
to nature, the great healer, and so does some 
good. Great virtue in imagination! Where 
there is disease which time will not reach, 
"Christian Science" is useless. * * * As for 
the High Priestess of it, she is, well, I could tell 
you better but not write, an awfully (I use the 
word advisedly) smart woman; acute, shrewd, 
but not well read, nor in any way learned. What 
she has, as documents clearly show, she got from 
P. P. Quimby of Portland, Maine, whom she 
eulogized as the great leader, and her special 



239 



Appendix 

Eddyism teacher. Quimby had definite ideas, but Mrs. 
Eddy has not understood them. * * * No, 
Swedenborg and all other such writers are a 
sealed book to her. She cannot understand such 
utterances and never could, but dollars and cents 
she understands thoroughly/ 9 

Her meetings on Sunday are supplied every- 
where with uniform advertising material from 
Boston, which they are not permitted to go out- 
side of. She and her associates at Boston do 
not hesitate to pervert the Bible continually for 
the purpose of advertising her book and business. 
Their meetings on Sunday and Wednesday even- 
ing are advertising meetings, pure and simple, 
just as much as the printed advertisements of 
Peruna, or Lydia Pinkham's Compound, which 
appear in the newspapers and in other publica- 
tions; and follow very similar * 'suggestive* ' lines: 
Have tried all other doctors (and religions) and 
got no help until I bought Mrs. Eddy's book, 
and have such "gratitude" or "love" for "Mrs. 
Mary Baker G. Eddy;" the "love" and "grati- 
tude" and "Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy" being 
all according to the formula furnished abun- 
dantly in Mrs. Eddy's advertising publications. 

Some of the cases of healing reported are 
undoubtedly genuine, as are also similar cases 



240 



Appendix 

from the use of patent medicines where recovery Eddyism 
has been brought about by the "suggestive" ad- 
vertising employed, rather than by any sufficient 
virtue in the remedy itself. 

Eddyites, however, enormously exaggerate 
such cases, and make them the basis for many 
claims which are wholly fictitious. 

With hundreds and thousands of Eddyite 
"healers" making their living out of the 
business, there is no difficulty in having stirring 
testimonies at their advertising meetings, which 
they have the effrontery to call a "church;" and 
in connection with these meetings they have 
organ music and use a Hymn Book which is a 
curiosity of its kind, containing many ethical 
rhymes set to familiar hymn tunes, and an oc- 
casional familiar hymn "abbreviated and ar- 
ranged" to make it suit the object aimed at, but 
no reference to a Heavenly Father or Redeemer, 
sin or salvation, death or resurrection — the very 
fundamentals of Christianity. Although deny- 
ing the existence of material things altogether, 
they teach that if any man becomes an Eddyite, 
he can "demonstrate" success in business and 
in everything else. 

The amount of deception and falsehood in 
this business from beginning to end is shocking 



Appendix 

Eddyiem to the moral sense of all intelligent Christians 
who have examined it thoroughly. 

Eddyites "substitute gain for godliness," as 
the Bible says. They promise freedom from 
physical ailments, and prosperity in worldly 
affairs. As such false claims have been believed 
in by many, it is not surprising that the business 
has been so profitable to Mrs. Eddy and her 
associates. 

When Eddyites suffer from toothache they 
go to a dentist, and do not seem to realize that 
if they could arrest decay in the body at all, or 
the pain resulting from it, by thinking so — 
"demonstrating* ' is what they are taught to call 
it — they should have no difficulty in stopping it 
in the case of a decayed tooth. 

God has set a limit of time to the physical life 
of man on earth, and it is brought to an end by 
some physical ailment or damage from accident 
in the case of Christians and of Eddyites alike. 
Mrs. Eddy came of long-lived parentage, and 
because of that and the greatest possible care, 
she has lived longer than the average, but her 
poor, old body suffers from all the infirmities of 
old age and approaching dissolution. Physical 
ailments and death will never be overcome on 
earth until the Son of God returns in glory, as 



242 



Appendix 

He has promised, to accomplish that and to be- Eddyism 
stow immortal life upon those whom He has 
redeemed. 

Mrs. Eddy, in ignorance of Christianity and 
for purposes of gain, has been guilty of wicked 
folly in daring to substitute herself for the Lord 
Jesus Christ. O, the wickedness of it, and O, 
the folly of it ! 

But think of the blind folly of professing 
Christians being deluded by her claims ! There 
have been many cases of this kind. Having 
been relieved of some nervous ailment by "sug- 
gestion/ ' or hypnotism, — and the words are 
synonymous in this connection — they have been 
led by constant and specious perversion of the 
Scriptures to accept the claims of Mrs. Eddy in 
her advertising book, and to give up Him who 
has created us, Who swings the mighty worlds 
in their vast orbits, Who humbled Himself to 
come to earth and take upon Himself man's 
nature, and to suffer and die to redeem us. 

In the case of such people the result has been 
pitiable. For a time they have lived in "a fool's 
Paradise" through Mrs. Eddy's deceptions, but 
with advancing years physical ailments in- 
creased, as they do with everyone, until they 
lost faith in Mrs. Eddy's false panaceas. Hav- 



243 



Appendix 

Eddyism ing lost their Saviour, lost the comfort of prayer 
and of trust in a Heavenly Father, they have 
died "without God and without hope in the 
world," as the Bible says, unless before the end 
came, by the mercy of God they have turned 
again in penitence to a patient, loving, forgiving 
Redeemer. 

The writer recently heard the confession of 
one of these; a frightened, almost hopeless, 
elderly widow. She had had a great deal of 
sorrow, and trouble and suffering. She had 
been led to take up Eddyism owing to all its 
specious promises. "Healers" had preyed upon 
her. For two years, she said, she had been con- 
stantly reading that book, but it had brought her 
no relief in any respect, and had made it impos- 
sible for her to pray now. During all this time 
she had been in more or less physical pain, in 
straitened circumstances, and in constant fear of 
utter poverty ; and "O," she said, "I am so alone 
in the world now !" 

She was assured that she was not alone in the 
world; that although she had forsaken her 
Saviour, He had not forsaken her; that all her 
fears might be laid aside if she would return to 
Him in penitence, that her physical ailments 
were probably the result of her fears, and that 



244 



Appendix 

as her Heavenly Father had provided for her in Eddyism 
the past, she surely could trust Him in the 
future to provide for her, so that she would 
always have food to eat, a bed to sleep on and 
a roof over her head as long as she lived. In a 
flood of penitence she returned to her loving, 
forgiving Saviour. In a moment she had become 
a happy, hopeful Christian, never to be separ- 
ated again from her Lord and Master. 

One of the worst results of Eddyism is in its 
effects upon helpless children who are taught 
to disbelieve the evidence of their own God- 
given senses and grow up as little falsifiers and 
hypocrites. Then when ill, they are denied the 
comforting "mothering" which all other little 
children have the benefit of. 

Those who have been associated with Eddy- 
ites are familiar with their characteristic un- 
truthfulness concerning their ailments. Subject 
to the common ailments of humanity, they mis- 
represent their own little ailments such as other 
people get over without thinking anything about, 
but which under this deplorable system of decep- 
tion and falsehood they habitually exaggerate 
enormously and then make equally extravagant 
claims of wonderful "demonstrations." 

The healings recorded in the Bible were all 



345 



Appendix 

Eddyism instantaneous and without pecuniary reward. 
Eddyite "healers" claim wonderful cures when 
people recover from ailments by the ordinary 
process of nature, as most people do, but when 
after a long course of "treatment" by them, at 
so much a "treatment/' or so much a week, they 
fail to recover, or die, then they are advised to 
attribute their failure to the opposition of some 
member of the family, or to "Malicious Animal 
Magnetism" on the part of some one else. This 
teaching of Malicious Animal Magnetism is false 
in every particular, and is a revival of the old 
pagan superstition of witchcraft which is still 
believed in by ignorant, uncivilized peoples, but 
has long since passed away in Christian coun- 
tries, except among the most ignorant, like the 
negroes of the South, who believe in it as voo- 
dooism. 

There is nothing surprising about the success 
and profitable character of Mrs. Eddy's busi- 
ness. A great many people are ignorant and 
credulous, and are ready to accept anything that 
seems to be mysterious, or to believe in a pagan 
philosophy for want of knowledge of anything 
better. They feel greatly flattered to be called 
little deities themselves, and accept it compla- 
cently. 



246 



Appendix 

To sum up Mrs. Eddy's teaching in one word, Eddyism 
it is self-deification. They come together in their 
meetings to worship self, instead of worshipping 
God. As the Bible says of such: "They ex- 
changed the truth of God for a lie, and wor- 
shipped and served the creature rather than the 
Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen." 

Mrs. Eddy has made a large fortune out of 
the business, it is true, but so have many manu- 
facturers of patent medicines through "sugges- 
tive" advertising, while they have had large 
sums for extensive advertising to pay out of the 
profits of their business. 

Mrs. Eddy with remarkable shrewdness has 
succeeded in having her patrons pay for all her 
advertising, while she has reaped the entire 
profits of the business. Eddyites provide at 
their own expense the buildings where her ad- 
vertising meetings are held. They have to pay 
$3.00 for her advertising book known as Science 
and Health, which costs only 47 cents; and 
every few years changes are made in it and a 
new edition is issued which they are all under 
obligation to buy, while she refuses to take back 
the old editions at any price. They have to pay 
for her advertising publications known as the 
Christian Science Journal and Christian Science 



947 



Appendix 

Eddyism Sentinel, which are as full of "suggestive" adver- 
tising as patent medicine almanacs, and by the 
constant reading of these and of her book, which 
she enjoins, she keeps up the hypnotic spell 
upon them by which they become self-hypno- 
tised, and which renders them oblivious to com- 
mon sense. 

Her "healers" all pay a substantial sum to get 
into an easy business, and are her most active 
advertising agents without a penny of expense. 
Able and eloquent advertising agents are em- 
ployed and sent out as lecturers, and what they 
have to say is all revised at Boston before they 
go out. 

But notwithstanding all this "suggestive" 
advertising, the business is rapidly falling away. 
It is being patronized very largely by Jews now, 
who find nothing of Christ's Divinity in it to 
hinder their acceptance of it. It is also torn by 
dissensions among themselves through belief in 
"Malicious Animal Magnetism" applied to one 
another ; no mention of which reaches the public 
in their advertising publications. (See "Sins of 
Eddyism," and "The Eddyite," by Judge 
Louttit, a former "First Reader" of theirs, pub- 
lished by The Colonial Press, Fort Wayne, 
Indiana). Besides, what is good in it is a com- 



248 






Appendix 

mon heritage and is being taught in other better Eddyism 
ways, unmixed with Mrs. Eddy's falsities and 
superstitions. 

The remarkable shrewdness of Mrs. Eddy in 
gathering in money and property to herself at 
the expense of her followers is shown in Miss 
Milmine's history of her life, in connection with 
the establishment of what they call the Mother 
"church" at Boston, which in brief is as follows: 

There was a First "church" property there 
of much value owned and held by her own fol- 
lowers, on which there was a mortgage with 
interest amounting to about $5,000.00. Mrs. 
Eddy purchased the mortgage and foreclosed it, 
thus obtaining individual ownership of a prop- 
erty worth several times that amount. Then she 
got up a scheme of a Mother "church" and suc- 
ceeded in getting several hundred thousand dol- 
lars from her adherents to erect a larger building 
on the same property laudatory of herself. 
When completed she executed a trust deed, turn- 
ing the property over to trustees named by her- 
self, and whom she can change at any time, sub- 
ject to the conditions that if anything is taught 
in it except her book and what she may there- 
after write, or if at any time these trustees 
should decide that the conditions of this trust 



249 



Appendix 

Eddyisxn had been violated in any way, they shall turn 
over the property and buildings to Mrs. Eddy, 
her heirs or assigns ; and so the people who paid 
such large sums of money for it have no title 
to this property at all. 

Then she followed this with a scheme to have 
all her followers everywhere become members of 
this Mother " church/ ' at so much a head, thus 
creating a new and very large addition to her 
income. Surely, as her former "literary adviser" 
wrote: "But dollars and cents she understands 
thoroughly." 

There is a remarkable parallel between Mrs. 
Eddy and Simon Magus, one of the early anti- 
christs mentioned in the eighth chapter of The 
Acts, whom the apostles so severely rebuked for 
hypocrisy, and the abuse of holy things to sordid 
ends. Indeed, if there were any truth in the- 
osophy, Mrs. Eddy might easily prove that she 
was the reincarnation of Simon Magus. 

SIMON MAGUS. 

Simon Magus, and his followers, 

Performed acts of healing for money; 

Claimed there was a difference between Jesus 

and Christ; 

Declared a male and female principle of 

Deity ; 

250 



Appendix 

Confounded sin with matter and called it evil; Eddyism 

Disparaged the divinely-created body and 
over-rated the mind; 

Called nuptial intercourse an adultery with 
matter, and therefore evil; 

Taught that Christ was phantasmal rather 
than real; 

Used separate portions of the Bible to sustain 
his claims; 

Perverted the Scriptures to sustain his ideas; 

Used the most extravagant and arbitrary 
allegorical principles ; 

Gathered from mythology, astrology, physics 
and magic 

Everything that could in any way support his 
theories. 

Simon Magus took around his mistress Helen 
with him and represented her as having de- 
scended from heaven, and as being the primitive 
essence of wisdom. (See History of the Chris- 
tian Church, by Philip Schaff, D.D., LL.D., 
Chapter on Gnosticism.) 

Gnosticism abounded in the first and early 
part of the second century in opposition to 
Christianity, and was even more widespread 
than Eddyism is today, but quickly disappeared. 



251 



Appendix 

Little children, it is the last hour: and as ye 
heard that antichrist cometh, even now there have 
arisen many antichrists ; whereby we know that it 
is the last hour. They went out from us, but they 
are not of us ; for if they had been of us, they 
would have continued with us : but they went out 
that they might be made manifest that they all 
are not of us. And ye have an anointing from 
the Holy One, and ye know all things. I have 
not written unto you because ye know not the 
truth, but because ye know it, and because no lie 
is of the truth." 

"Who is the liar but he that denieth that Jesus 
is the Christ? This is the antichrist, even he that 
denieth the Father and the Son. Whosoever 
denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father: 
he that confesseth the Son hath the Father also. 
As for you, let that abide in you which ye have 
heard from the beginning. If that which ye heard 
from the beginning abide in you, ye also shall 
abide in the Son, and in the Father. And this is 
the promise which He promised us, even the life 
eternal" (l John 2:18). 

For many deceivers are gone forth into the 
world, even they that confess not that Jesus Christ 
cometh in the flesh. This is the deceiver and the 
antichrist" (2 John 7). 



252 






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